PATTY had been triumphantly successful in the first chapter of her career. She had an easy victory over her father-in-law. She had cleared the house of everybody whom she disliked or feared. First, Mrs. Osborne, and with her—not least in Patty’s estimation—Sarah, Osy’s maid, who had been at school with her, and whom she was still more anxious to get rid of than her mistress. Then Parsons, who knew a great deal too much of the family to be endurable for a moment; then the one servant in the house who had ventured to be rude to Gervase’s wife, John the footman: a dreadful example, whose sudden fate had exercised the most salutary influence over the rest of the household. It is true that Dunning still remained Sir Giles’ attendant, against whom there were the same objections as against Parsons; but for the moment, at least, Dunning was indispensable, and had to be borne with. She stood, however, after the first month of her sway on the very top-gallant of success, supreme in the house, her word a law, the oldest and most secure arrangements falling to pieces at her will, the entire order of affairs changed to please her. Everything had gone as she desired, and no head had been lifted up in rebellion. The great wardrobes were full of fine clothes. She had shuffled off Miss Fletcher, the village dressmaker, and procured the finest and most highly cultivated maid that ever advertised in the Times. Lady Piercey’s stores of lace and linen, and even her old-fashioned jewellery, which was much more valuable than beautiful, were in Patty’s hands. She had realised all her dreams, and more than all. But there is nothing perfect in human affairs, and now the reverse of her good fortune began to rise out of the mists before Patty’s eyes.
The first trouble of all was, perhaps, the cutting off of her connection with her home and origin. Her father had come to see her very early in her story, had been received in the half-dismantled library for a short angry conference, and left with a crimson countenance and a volley of muttered oaths, and had never come again. But there was another member of the family who was less easy to get rid of. Miss Hewitt made a call in state, in her most splendid costume, with a bonnet still more exuberant in red and yellow than that in which she had witnessed the funeral of Lady Piercey. She descended upon Patty at an early hour, when Mrs. Gervase was still profoundly occupied with the restoration of the great drawing-room, and made her way there, regardless of the opposition of the polite butler. “Perhaps you are not aware that I am Mrs. Piercey’s own aunt,” that lady said fiercely; “I shall go to my niece wherever she is. I have no fear of not being welcome.” The butler knew, also, too well who the visitor was, and he trembled for the consequences of his weakness as she pushed her way before him into the room where the carpenter and his apprentice and a couple of housemaids were executing Patty’s orders, under her close superintendence. The men were on ladders cleaning the long mirrors, the maids were busy with the furniture, while Patty, seated in a gilt and brocaded chair sat in state looking on. “Place that table in the corner, there, and these two chairs beside it. Not that, you stupid; the deep gentleman’s chair on one side, and this one without arms on the other—let me see. Yes, that will do, with a palm or a great fern behind.” Patty held her head on one side to contemplate the effect, while the two housemaids stood looking on, not yet so much accustomed to the new sway that they did not exchange a glance, a “la! much she knows about it,” when her attention was called away.
It was, indeed, with no small start and sensation that Patty’s attention was called away. She was sitting thus, with her head on one side, contemplating the group of furniture, perhaps imagining herself in the chair without arms, with a silken train arranged about her feet (when her mourning should be over, for Patty was, in all things, a stickler for propriety), while some grand gentleman, a viscount at least, leant over the table entertaining her from the depths of the “gentleman’s chair”: when there suddenly burst upon her consciousness a bustle at the door, a quick throwing open, and a voice which was harsh and jarring, but alas, how well known and familiar!
“Patty, my pet, here I am! That man of yours wanted to put me in a waiting-room, but I said, Where she is there I’ll go; and here I am, my little lovey, and a happy woman to see you in your own house.”
“Oh!” cried Patty, rising quickly from her chair. Her wits were so much about her, even in this great and sudden shock, that she refrained from saying aunt in the hearing of that excited audience—which was foolish, indeed, since all the housemaids and all the carpenters in Greyshott parish knew very well that Miss Hewitt, of Rose Cottage, was Mrs. Piercey’s aunt, and far the richest, consequently the most respectable of her kindred. Patty could not say much more, for she was enfolded in the heavy drapery of Miss Hewitt’s Paisley shawl, and almost stifled in her close embrace. “And bless you, all’s ended as I said it would; and ain’t I glad I was the one to help you to it?” Miss Hewitt said in her enthusiasm, bestowing a large audible kiss on Patty’s face.
“Oh, dear!” said Patty, as soon as she could speak. “This isn’t the place to receive any one in. Jervis, why didn’t you show the lady into the morning-room? I can’t talk to you here, with all the servants about.”
“Don’t blame the man,” said Miss Hewitt; “I wanted to see you free, without stopping whatever you were doing. It’s not as if I were a mere visitor as couldn’t make allowances. I just like to see everything, and what it was like before, and what you’re doing. I know you, Patty. They won’t know it for the same ’ouse afore you’re done with it. Well, this is a nice room! but none too big for what you’ll want when you get things your own way. Greyshott won’t know itself with all the doings there’ll be.”
“Oh, but I can’t receive any lady here,” said Patty. “Let me take you into the morning-room; it’s where I always sit in the morning. I couldn’t possibly sit and talk with a caller before lunch in any other place. If you don’t mind I’ll show you the way.”
The butler held the door open with an obsequious air in which there was, as that functionary was well aware, an over-acting of his part—but that did not occur to the ladies who swept out, Patty in advance, and to whom it would scarcely have seemed too much if Jervis had walked backwards before them. He stayed behind to make his comment with uplifted hands and eyes upon the spectacle. “Lord, ain’t she a-going it!” said Jervis. It was, perhaps, not dignified for a person in his position to unbosom himself to the housemaids and the carpenter; but how could mortal man keep silent in circumstances so exciting? The ladies went to the morning-room in another frame of mind, both of them putting on silently their armour for the inevitable battle. When they had reached the room which was to be the scene of it, Miss Hewitt flung herself at once heavily into an easy chair. “Well! I call this a poky little place,” she cried. “You might have sent the servants away, Patty. I liked that other place much better. Morning-room! why it’s no better than my parlour,” she cried.
“It would only hold the whole of your house, kitchen and all,” cried Patty; “and it’s where I choose people to come,” she added decisively, “when they’ve that little sense as to come in the morning, when no lady receives.”
“Oh, that’s how I am to be met, is it?” said Miss Hewitt, “you little ungrateful wretch! It was nothing but dear aunt, and how good I was, when you came to me to help you. Ah! you had to come to me to help to secure him at the last—and him nothing but a Softy. If I had had somebody to stand for me like I did for you, Miss Patty, Greyshott would have been a very different place, and you’d never have got your nose in here!”
“Well, Aunt,” said Patty, “if those are your ideas, you can’t wonder that I shouldn’t want you. For if you had married Sir Giles, which I suppose is what you mean, and would never have let me get my nose in, you’ll understand that I don’t want your nose in. I wouldn’t have said it so plump if you hadn’t begun. Though I don’t believe Sir Giles ever thought of such a thing, now I know him well.”
“He’s not a Softy, you see,” said the angry old lady, with a snort.
“No,” said Patty, sedately; “he’s not a Softy. I should think he’d had a good deal of common-sense in his day. But I don’t want to quarrel,” she added; “whatever you may do. No doubt you’ve come about your money, which is quite natural. You shall have your money, Aunt Patience. It wasn’t so needful as I thought it would be, for Mr. Piercey had plenty for what was wanted; but, of course, I’m much obliged to you all the same.”
“Oh, Mr. Piercey: that’s what you call the Softy now!” cried Miss Hewitt, in high scorn.
“It’s what I always called him, and it’s his name and mine too. I’m Mrs. Piercey, as the heir’s wife, and not Mrs. Gervase. My father-in-law says so, and he ought to know.”
“Oh, your father-in-law,” cried Miss Hewitt, with extreme bitterness; “you’ve changed all your relations, I see. When it comes to a person to disown their debts and their folks——”
“I do neither the one nor the other,” cried Patty. “You shall have every penny of your fifty pounds—and interest, if you like, with that. And everybody knows my folks,” she cried, with a toss of her head. “Oh, no fear that they’ll ever be forgotten. Father’s been here with the smell of beer about him like to knock you down, and when I told him I couldn’t bear it, what does he do but fling out of the house cursing and swearing, and letting everybody see.”
“Well, your father is a trial,” Miss Hewitt allowed candidly. “I don’t wonder, Patty, as you were hurt; but so was he, and he won’t come back no more, won’t Richard. You can’t, anyhow, my pet, have the same objections to me.”
Miss Hewitt held her head aloft, and her golden flowers nodded and rustled. The complacency of her smile, and the confidence that in her there was nothing to find fault with, was too much even for Patty. She could not say the words that came to her lips.
“Well, Aunt Patience,” she said, in subdued tones, “I am treating you just the same as if you were Lady Hartmore.”
“And no more than is my due, Patty. I might have been my lady many and many’s the year if I’d had an Aunt Patience as would have done for me as I’ve done for you. Has she been to call already? She’s one as always respects the rising sun.”
“No,” said Patty, still more subdued, “she has not been yet—but that’s easy explained, where there’s been so lately a death in the house.”
“And a good thing for you, too! If ever there was a tyrant of a woman—— But I see you’re in deep crape, Patty, to show your grief.”
“I hope I know better than to show any want of respect to my mother-in-law. And I think, Aunt Patience, you might have known better than to come to a house that’s in such mourning with all these colours on your head.”
“My bonnet!” cried Miss Hewitt. She caught sight of herself in a glass, and bridled and smiled at herself, instinctively arranging the bow of red ribbon that was tied under her chin. “I never had such a becoming bonnet in my life; and as for mourning, there’s nobody could expect me to put on black for her.”
“No,” said Patty, “and that’s why I hadn’t expected even a call from you, Aunt Patience, during the mourning—not being in any way a real connection of the house.”
Miss Hewitt fixed her eyes very wide open upon those of her niece, and the two maintained a silent combat by that method for at least a minute. It was the elder who gave in the first. “If that’s how you’re going to treat your own relations,” she said, “Patty, you’ll not see much of me. And I can tell you, as well as if it had happened already, you won’t see much of other folks. There’s none of the grand people as you’re looking for that will come near the place. The rector’ll call because he’s bound to, and because you was once his show girl at the Sunday School; and the new curate will call to see if he can get a subscription for something, but, mark you my words: nobody else—no, not a soul! and when you’ve bundled everybody belonging to you out of your doors, then you’ll see who you’ll have to speak to. I’m sorry for you, Patty, I am indeed.”
“Are you, Aunt Patience?” cried Patty, with defiance. “When it comes to that, I’ll send for you back.”
“It’s a deal easier,” said Miss Hewitt sententiously, “to whistle folks away than to bring them back.”
But after this there was a cessation of hostilities, and in the end Miss Hewitt was taken over the house to see all its splendours, which, as much as possible, she depreciated. She was the only witness of her elevation whom Patty had as yet had, and though some sacrifice of pride and spirit was necessary, a natural longing to impress and dazzle her world, through the means of some spectator, was still stronger. Patty went so far as to offer her aunt some of those pairs of silk stockings which Parsons had been counting when her new mistress fell upon her. “They’re such good stockings,” Patty said, “but miles too big for me.” “If you think I’ll wear her old cast-off things!” cried Miss Hewitt, purple with rage, flinging them back into the drawers from which Patty had taken them. “And my foot, if anything, is a little smaller than yours,” she added, with angry satisfaction. But when the visitor lingered and at last betrayed her desire to be asked to stay for “dinner”—a word which came out unadvisedly, and which she immediately corrected, with a blush—“Lunch, I suppose you call it,”—Patty assumed very high ground.
“My dear Aunt! if we were by ourselves of course it would not matter; but dear papa always takes his luncheon along with us.”
“And who’s dear papa?” asked Miss Hewitt, with natural derision.
“I mean Sir Giles, of course; he’s in very delicate health, and we have to be very careful.”
“Sir Giles,” said Miss Hewitt grimly, “has seen me before.”
“Yes—he said so when he heard my name—he said, Where have I heard that name before?”
“Patty, you’re a little devil; he knows a deal more than that of me.”
“Ah, well, perhaps once, Aunt; but his memory’s gone now; and to bring in a stranger to the luncheon table! Perhaps you don’t remember,” said Patty severely, “that my poor dear mother-in-law has not yet been a fortnight in her grave.”
Miss Hewitt was thus got rid of, though not without trouble; but Patty did not find it easy to forget what she had said, especially when it came true to the letter; for week after week went by and not a step, except that of the doctor, crossed the threshold of Greyshott. Patty took her place in the drawing-room every afternoon, with everything arranged very cleverly, and looking as like as an imitation could be to the little mise en scène of a young lady waiting for her guests; but no guests ever came. At length, after much waiting, there appeared—exactly as Aunt Patience had said—the rector! accompanied by his young daughter, for he was a widower. The rector called her Patty in the first moment of meeting, and though he amended that in a confused manner, and gave her finally her full honours as Mrs. Piercey, it was difficult to get over that beginning, which threw his young companion into utter discomfiture. And then, to make matters worse, he delivered a little lecture upon the responsibilities of her new position and the difficulty of the duties that would come upon her. “You must not let your mind dwell on your disadvantages,” he said kindly; “everybody, after a while, will make allowances for you.” “You are quite mistaken if you think I want to have allowances made for me,” said Patty, provoked. And what could the rector reply? He said, “Oh!” thus showing the poverty of the English language, and how little a man in such a predicament can find to say for himself; and then he began hurriedly to talk parish talk, and ask Mrs. Piercey’s patronage for various charities—charities by which Patty Hewitt might almost have been in a position to benefit so short a time ago. “That’s well over,” he said to his daughter, wiping his forehead, when they went out of the gates of Greyshott. And he did not come again, nor she—not even the girl. And nobody came; and of all the difficult things in the world Mrs. Gervase Piercey found nothing so difficult as to explain to her grand maid how it was that no visitor was ever seen at Greyshott. The thing itself was bad enough, but to explain it to Jerningham was still worse. “You see we are still in deep mourning,” Mrs. Piercey said. “Yes, ma’am,” said Jerningham, with a sniff of polite scepticism. For a lady who, however deep her mourning might be, had not a single friend to come to see her, was more than Jerningham could understand. And Patty sat alone in her fine drawing-room, and walked about her great house, and spoke to nobody but old Sir Giles and her own Softy; and thought many times, with a kind of alarm, of what Aunt Patience had said. Had it not already come true?