MRS. PIERCEY went to town after Easter, as she was aware everybody who respected themselves, who were in Society, or who had any money to spend, did. But, alas! she did not know how to manage this any more than to find the usual solace in country life. She was, indeed, still more helpless in town; for no doubt in the country, if she had been patient, there would at last have been found somebody who would have had courage to break the embargo, to defy Lord and Lady Hartmore and all the partisans of the old family, and to call upon the lady of Greyshott. But in town what could Patty do? She knew nobody but the distant cousins somewhere in the depths of Islington, to whom she had gone at the time of her marriage, but whom she had taken care to forget the very existence of as soon as her need for them was over. Mrs. Piercey went to a fashionable hotel, and engaged a handsome set of rooms, and sat down and waited for happiness to come to her. She had her maid with her, the irreproachable Jerningham, who would not allow her mistress to demean herself by making a companion of her; and she had Robert, the footman, and her own coachman from Greyshott, and a new victoria in which to drive about—all the elements of happiness—poor Patty! and yet it would not come. She had permitted herself, by this time, to drop the weight of her mourning, and to blossom forth in grey and white; and she drove in the Park in the most beautiful costumes, with the old fat Greyshott horses, who were in themselves a certificate that she was somebody, no mushroom of a parvenue. So was the coachman, who was the real old Greyshott coachman, and (evidently) had been in the family for generations. She drove steadily every day along the sacred promenade, and was seen of everybody, and discussed among various bands of onlookers, whose only occupation, like the Athenians, was that of seeing or hearing some new thing. Who was she? That she was not of the style of her horses and her coachman was apparent at a glance. Where had she got them? Was it an attempt on the part of some visitor from the ends of the earth to pose as a lady of established family? Was it, perhaps, a daring coup on the part of some person, not at all comme il faut, to attract the observation and curiosity of the world? Patty’s little face, with its somewhat fast prettiness, half abashed, half impudent, shone out of its surroundings with a contradiction to all those suppositions. The Person would not have been at all abashed, but wholly impudent, or else quite assured and satisfied with herself; and in any case she would not have been alone. A stranger, above all, would not have been alone. There would have been a bevy of other women with her, making merry over all the novelty about them, and this, probably, would have been the case had the other idea been correct. But who was this, with the face of a pretty housemaid and the horses of a respectable dowager? Some of the gentlemen in the park, who amused themselves with these speculations, would, no doubt, have managed to resolve their doubts on the subject had not Patty been, as much as Una, though she was so different a character, enveloped in an atmosphere of such unquestionable good behaviour and modesty as no instructed eye could mistake. Women, who are less instructed on such matters, may mistake; but not men, who have better means of knowing. Thus Patty did make a little commotion; but as she had no means of knowing of it, and no one to tell her, it did her no good in the world.
And she went a good many times to the theatre, and to the opera, though it bored her. But this was a great ordeal: to go into a box all alone, and subject herself to the opera-glasses of the multitude. Patty did not mind it at first. She liked to be seen, and had no objection that people should look at her, and her diamonds; and there was a hope that it might lead to something in her mind. But how could it lead to anything? for she knew nobody who was likely to be seen at the opera. When she went home in the evening she could have cried for disappointment and mortification. Was this all? Was there never to be anything more than this? Was all her life to be spent thus in luxury and splendour; always alone?
At first she had dined in solitary state in her rooms, as she thought it right, in her position, to do. But when Patty heard that other people of equal pretensions—one of them the baronet’s lady, whom it was her despair not to be—went down to the general dining-room for their meals, she was too happy to go there too, thinking she must, at least, make some acquaintance with the other dwellers in the hotel. But things were not much better there, for Mrs. Piercey was established at a little table by herself in great state, but unutterable solitude, watching with a sick heart the groups about her—the people who were going to the theatre, or to such delights of balls and evening parties as Patty had never known. There was but one solitary person beside herself, and that was an old gentleman, with his napkin tucked into his buttonhole, who was absorbed by the menu and evidently thought of nothing else. Patty watched the groups with hungry eyes—the men in their evening coats, with wide expanses of white; the ladies, who evidently intended to dress after this semi-public dinner. Oh, how she longed to belong to some one, to have some one belonging to her! And such a little thing, she thought, would do it: nothing more than an introduction, nothing beyond the advent of some one who knew her, who would say, “Mrs. Piercey of Greyshott,” and the ice would be broken. But then that some one who knew her, where was he or she to be found?
Alas! there came a moment when both he and she were found, and that was the worst of all. She was seated listlessly in her usual solitude, when she saw a pair of people who were taking their seats at a table not far off. They had their backs turned towards her, and yet they seemed familiar to Patty. They were both tall, the gentleman with a military air, the lady with a little bend in her head which Patty thought she knew. There was about them that indefinable air of being lately married which it is so very difficult to obliterate, though they did not look very young. The lady was quietly dressed, or rather she was in a dress which was the symbol of quiet—quakerly, or motherly, to our grandmothers: grey satin, but with such reflections and shadows in it, as has made it in our better instructed age one of the most perfectly decorative of fabrics. Patty, experienced by this time in the habits and customs of the people she watched so wistfully, was of opinion that they were going to the opera. Who were they? She knew them—oh, certainly she knew them; and they evidently knew several of the groups about; and now at last Patty’s opportunity had surely come.
I think by this time Mrs. Piercey of Greyshott had acquired a forlorn look, the consequence of her many disappointments. It is not pleasant to sit and watch people who are better off than we are, however philosophical and high-minded we may be; and Patty, it need not be said, was neither. Her mouth had got a little droop at the corners, her eyes a little fixity, as of staring and weariness in staring. She was too much dressed for the dining-room of a hotel, and she had very manifestly the air of being alone, and of being accustomed to be alone. I think that, as so often happens, Patty was on the eve of finding the acquaintance for whom her soul longed, at these very moments when her burden was about to become too much for her to bear; and she certainly had attained recognition in the world outside, as was to be proved to her no later than to-night. Such coincidences are of frequent occurrence in human affairs. It had become known in the hotel to some kind people, who had watched her solitude as she watched their cheerful company, who she was; and the matron of the party had remembered how much that was good had been said of Patty on the trial, and how kind she had been to the old man who had left her all his money without any doing of hers. “Poor little thing! I shall certainly take an opportunity of speaking to her to-morrow,” this lady was saying, as Patty watched with absorbed attention the other people. Indeed, the compassion of this good woman might have hastened her purpose and made her “speak” that very night, had not Patty been so bent upon those other people whom she was more and more sure she knew; and what a difference—what a difference in her life might that have made! But she never knew—which was, perhaps, in the circumstances, a good thing.
It was while Patty’s attention was called away perforce by the waiter who attended to her, that the other people at whom she had been gazing became aware of her presence. The gentleman had turned a bronzed face, full of the glow of warmer suns than ours, in her direction, and started visibly. He was a man whom the reader has seen habitually with another expression—that of perplexity and general discontent; a man with a temper, and with little patience, though capable of better things. He had apparently got to these better things now. His face was lighted up with happiness; he was bending over the little table, which, small as it was, seemed too much to separate them, to talk to his wife, with the air of a man who has so much and so many things to say, that he has not a minute to lose in the outpouring of his heart. She was full of response, if not perhaps so overflowing; but on her aspect, too, there had come a wonderful change. Her beautiful grey satin gown was not more unlike the unfailing black which Mrs. Osborne always wore, than the poor relation of Greyshott was to Gerald Piercey’s wife, Meg Piercey once again. It would be vain to enter upon all the preliminaries which brought about this happy conclusion. Margaret had many difficulties to get over, which to everybody else appeared fantastical enough. A second marriage is a thing which, in theory, few women like; and to cease to belong solely to Osy, and to bear another name than his, though it was her own, was very painful to her. Yet these difficulties had all been got over, even if I had space to enter into them; which, seeing that Patty is all this time waiting, dallying with her undesired dinner, and wondering who these people are whom she seems to know, would be uncalled for in the highest degree.
When the waiter came up to the solitary lady at the table, and Colonel Piercey turned his face in that direction, he started and swore under his breath, “By Jove!” though he was not a man addicted to expletives. Then he said, “Meg! Meg!” under his breath; “who do you think is sitting behind you at that table? Don’t turn round. Mrs. Piercey, as sure as life!”
“Mrs. Piercey?” She was bewildered for a moment. “There are so many Mrs. Pierceys. Whom do you mean?”
“One more than there used to be, for my salvation,” the bridegroom said; and then added, with a laugh, “but no other like this one, Meg—Mrs. Piercey of Greyshott——”
“Patty!” cried Margaret, under her breath.
“If you dare to be so familiar with so great a lady—the heroine of the trial, poor Uncle Giles’ good angel——”
“Oh, don’t be bitter, Gerald! It is all over and done with; and who knows, if it had been otherwise——”
“Whether we should ever have come together?” he said: “you know best, so far as that goes, my love; and if it might have been so, good luck to Greyshott, and I am glad we have not got it. Yes, there she is, the identical Patty; and none the better for her success, I should say, looking very much bored and rather pale.”
“Who is with her?” asked Margaret.
“There is nobody with her that I can see. No, she is quite alone, and bored, as I told you; and in a diamond necklace,” he said with a laugh.
“Alone, and with a diamond necklace, in the dining-room of a hotel!”
“Well, why not? To show it and herself, of course; and probably a much better way than any other in her power to show them.”
“Oh, Gerald, don’t be so merciless. She has got your inheritance; but still, it was really Uncle Giles’ will, and she was kind to him—even old Dunning could not deny that. And if Gervase had lived——”
“It was as well he did not live, poor fellow, for her as well as for himself, though I should certainly, myself, have preferred it; for then we should have had none of this fuss, either of anticipation or disappointment—and no trial, and no costs; and no useless baronetcy that brings in nothing.”
“Don’t say that; your father likes it, and so will you in your day.”
“My father likes to be head of the family, and so shall I. We’ll have our first quarrel, Meg, over that little hussy, then.”
“Not our first quarrel by a great many,” she said, letting her hand rest for a moment on his arm. “But don’t call her names, Gerald: all alone in a hotel in London, in the middle of the season, without a creature to speak a word to her! And I heard she was perfectly alone all the winter at home. Lady Hartmore goes too far. She has made it a personal matter that nobody should call. Poor little Patty! Gerald——”
“Poor little Patty, indeed! who has cost us not only Greyshott, but how many thousand pounds; who has made you poor, Meg.”
“There is poor and poor. Poor in your way is not poor in mine. I am rich, whatever you may be. Is she still there—alone—Gerald, with that white little face?” Margaret had managed, furtively, to turn her head, still under shadow of the waiter, and get a glimpse of their supplanter.
“What does it matter if her face is white or not? She has chalked it, perhaps, as she might rouge it on another occasion, to play her part.”
“You have no pity,” said Margaret; “to me it is very sad to see a poor woman like that alone, trying to enjoy herself. I think, Gerald, I will——”
“Will what? You are capable of anything, Meg. I shall not be surprised at whatever you propose.”
“Well, since you have so poor an opinion of me,” she said with a smile, “I think I’ll speak to her, Gerald.”
“Do you remember that she turned you out of your home? that she insulted you so that it was with difficulty I kept my temper?”
“You never did keep your temper, dear,” said Margaret with gentle impartiality, shaking her head; “and,” she added with a smile, “you insulted me far worse than ever Patty did. Should I bear malice? I will say a word to her before we go.”
When they rose, and when Patty saw who they were, the chalk which Colonel Piercey thought she was capable of using to play her part, yielded to a crimson so hot and vivid that its truth and reality were thoroughly proved. She half rose, too, then sat down again more determinedly than before.
“Mrs. Piercey,” said Margaret, “we saw you, and I could not pass you without a word.”
“You are very kind, I am sure, Margaret Osborne; but you could have left your table very well without coming near me.”
“Yes, perhaps,” said Margaret; “I should have said that, seeing you alone——”
“Oh, if I am alone it is my own fault!” cried Patty, with a heat of angry despair which almost took away her voice. Then it occurred to her that to show this passion was to lessen herself in the eyes of those to whom she most wished to appear happy and great. She forced her cry of rage into a little affected laugh. “I don’t often come here,” she said; “I dine generally in my own apartments. But to-day I expected friends who could not come, and so I thought I’d amuse myself by coming down here to see the wild beasts feed.”
As she said this, her eyes fell accidentally upon the kind lady who had made up her mind to make the acquaintance of this forlorn little woman, and startled that amiable person so that she sat gazing open-mouthed and open-eyed.
“In that case I am afraid I am only intruding,” said Margaret; “but I thought perhaps—if you are alone here, I—or my husband,” she added this with a sudden blush and smile, “might have been of some use——”
“Oh, your husband! I wish him joy, I am sure. So you stuck to him, though he hasn’t got Greyshott? Well, he’ll have the baronetcy, to be sure, when the old man dies—I hadn’t thought of that—without a penny! You must have been dead set on him, to be sure.”
And Patty, bursting with fury and despite, jumped up, almost oversetting the table, and with a wave of her hand as if dismissing a supplicant, but with none of her usual regard for her dignity and her dress in threading a crowd, hurried away.
“You got rather more than you looked for,” cried Colonel Piercey, triumphant, as Margaret came back to him and hastily took his arm. He had not heard what passed.
“I suppose there was nothing else to be expected,” Margaret said in a subdued voice.
Patty went to the opera that night, as she had intended, her heart almost bursting; for that she should have hoped to meet somebody who would introduce and help her, and then to find that somebody was Margaret Osborne, was almost more than she could bear; but soon she was soothed by perceiving that more opera-glasses were fixed on her than ever, and that the people in the boxes opposite, and in the stalls, were pointing her out to one another. She caught the sound of her own name as she sat well forward in her box, that her diamonds might be well seen and her own charms appreciated; and she almost forgot the indignity to which she had been, as she thought, subjected. But as she went out, poor Patty could not but hear some remarks which were not intended for her ear. “That was the woman,” somebody said, “the heroine of the great case, Piercey versus Piercey; don’t you remember? the woman who married an idiot, and then got his father to leave her all the property.” “What a horror!” said the lady addressed: “a barmaid, wasn’t she? and the poor creature she married quite imbecile—and now to come and plant herself there in the front of a box. Does she think anybody will take any notice of her, I wonder?” “Impudent little face, but rather broken down—begins to see it won’t pay,” said another man.
Patty caught Robert, her footman, by the arm, and shrieked to him to take her out of this, or she should faint, which the crowd around took for an exclamation of real despair, and made way for the lady, to let her get to the air. And Patty left town next day.