MRS. OSBORNE realised very fully all the weight of the trouble which had fallen upon her, but it is to be doubted whether she would have liked that compassionate apostrophe to “poor Meg!” any more than other things which had fallen from Gerald Piercey’s lips; or, indeed, whether she felt herself so much to be pitied as he did. Nobody knows like ourselves how hard and how heavy our troubles are; and yet, at the same time, our own case is generally less miserable to us than it is to the benevolent onlooker. The moment it becomes our own case it somehow becomes natural, and finds alleviations, or, if not alleviations, circumstances which prove it to be no such extraordinary thing. We change our position according to our lot, and even in the self-consciousness of crime become immediately aware of a whole world of people who are as badly off, or perhaps worse, than we are, without the same explanations of their conduct which exist in our case. Margaret, seeing what had befallen her, and what was about to befall her, instinctively changed her own point of view, and felt, along with the necessity, a new rising of life and courage. The long consideration of what she was to do, though perhaps a painful and discouraging deliberation, yet roused all her faculties and occupied her mind. At thirty-two (since we have arrived through Gerald Piercey’s calculations at something like her exact age), the thought of a new beginning can never be wholly painful. None of the possibilities of life are exhausted; the world is still before us where to choose. Nevertheless it was a confusing and not encouraging subject of thought. Margaret’s education, such as it was, had been completed before any new views about the education of women were prevalent; indeed, it would not have mattered much whether these ideas had been prevalent or not, for certainly it never would have entered into the minds of Sir Giles or Lady Piercey to send their niece to Girton, or even to any humbler place preparatory to Girton. They gave Margaret as little education as was indispensable, entertained reluctantly a governess for her for some years, and had her taught to play the piano a little, and to draw a little, and to have an awkward, not speaking acquaintance with the French verbs, which was all they knew or thought of as needful. What could she do with that amount of knowledge, even now, when she had supplemented it with a great deal of reading, and much thinking of her own? Nothing. No school would have her as a teacher, no sensible parent would trust her, all unaware of the technique of teaching as she was, with the education of their children. And what was there else that a woman, a lady, with all her wits about her, and the use of all her faculties, could do? That was the dreadful question. Margaret did not fall back with indignation on the thought that its chief difficulty arose from the fact that she was a woman; for she knew enough of life to be aware that a man of her own class in the same position, trained to nothing in particular, would be almost as badly off. There were “appointments” to be had, she knew, for men certainly, for woman too, occasionally, but she was perfectly vague about them, what they were. And the idea of going out to an office daily, which was her sole conception, and on the whole a just one, of what an “appointment” might mean, filled Margaret with a bewildering sense of inappropriateness and impossibility. It would not be she who could fill any such place. It would be something different from herself, a shadow or outward appearance of her, impossible for herself to realise. Impossible—impossible! She knew nothing but how to read, to think, to discharge the duties of a mother to her child, to live as English ladies live, concerned with small domestic offices, keeping life more or less in harmony, giving orders to the servants, and smoothing over the tempests and troubles which arose from the imperfect execution of these orders—and looking after the poor. To do all these things is to be a not unimportant servant to the commonwealth. Life would go far more roughly, with less advantage on both sides, were it not for functionaries of this kind: but then their services are generally to be had for nothing, and are not worth money; besides—which makes the matter more difficult still—these services lose a great part of their real value when they are done, not for love but for money, in which case the house lady of nature changes her place altogether and goes over to another and far less pleasing kind.
These thoughts had passed through Margaret’s mind vaguely, and without any pressure of an immediate emergency, many times already in the course of her speculations as to the future for Osy and for herself. She had often said to herself that she could not remain at Greyshott for ever; that the time must come when she would have to decide upon something; that the old couple who were her protectors could not live for ever; and that the house of Gervase, poor Gervase, however it might turn out, would probably be no home for her. She had gone over all those suggestions of what she could do to increase her small income, and to educate her child, with a ceaseless interest, but yet without any sharpness or urgency, as of a thing that might happen at any moment. And there was always a vague ground of probability behind—that either one or other of the old people, who were so fond of Osy, might leave him something to make his first steps easier, that they would not go out of the world without making some provision even for herself, who had served them like their own child, and knew no home but under their wing. There would be that, whatever it was, to make everything more possible. She had not calculated on it, and yet she had felt assured that some such thing would be. But now all those prospects had come to an end in a moment. Lady Piercey had left no will at all, and Sir Giles was no longer a free agent, or would not be so any longer. The prospect was cut off before her eyes, all that shadowy margin gone, nothing left but the bare certainty. Two hundred a year! There are very different ways of looking at two hundred pounds a year. It is not very long since the papers were full of letters demonstrating the impossibility of supporting life with honesty and gentility on seven hundred a year. The calculations looked so very convincing, that one rubbed one’s bewildered eyes if one had been accustomed to believe (as I confess I had) that there was a great deal of pleasant spending for two young people in seven hundred a year. On the other hand, I have just read a novel, and a very clever novel, in which it is considered quite justifiable for a young man to marry and take upon him the charge of his wife’s mother and sister on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Clearly there is a very great difference between these estimates, and I think it very likely that the author of the latter is more practically instructed as to what she is speaking of than the gentleman who made the other calculations. Who shall decide upon the fact that lies between these two statements? I can only say that Margaret Osborne’s conclusion was not to waste her time in efforts to get work which she probably could not do well, and which would be quite inappropriate to her, but to try what could be done upon her two hundred pounds a year. Ah! how many, many millions of people would be thankful to have two hundred a year! How many honest, good, well-conditioned families, “buirdly chiels and clever hizzies,” have been brought up on the half of it! But yet there are differences which cannot be ignored. The working man has many advantages over the gentleman, with his host of artificial wants—but, alas! we cannot go back easily to the rule of nature. Margaret was not so utterly unprovided for as her cousin Gerald had remorsefully imagined. She was not destitute, as she said. She had laid a little money aside for this always-threatening emergency; and she had spoken to Sarah, Osy’s maid, who, though reluctantly and on a very distant and far-off possibility, had declared it possible that she might undertake to do the work of a small house. “But, oh! I wouldn’t, ma’am,” Sarah had said, “not if I was you; you would miss Greyshott and the nice big rooms, and nothing to do but ring the bell.” Margaret had laughed at this conception of life, and laughed now as she recalled it. But no doubt it was true. She was not very apt at ringing of bells, nor did she require much personal service—still it would not be without a regret, a sense of the difference—but that was of too little real importance to be thought of now.
Indeed, all these thoughts were as nothing to the other which Gerald Piercey, in his desire to help her, had flung into her mind like an arrow of fire. To carry Osy away to that cottage, to deprive him of all those “advantages” which, even at his age, a child can understand—Osy would know very well what that sacrifice meant when he had no pony to ride on, no great rooms to run about in, no obsequious court of flatterers ready to carry him on their shoulders, to give him drives and rides on nobler animals, to bring him dainties, and all kinds of indulgences. Osy had been the favourite of the house, as well as of old Sir Giles and my lady. He had been as free of the housekeeper’s room as of the library. There was nobody who had not bowed down before him and sought to please him. The child, though he was only a child, would understand what it was to relinquish all these, to have a small cottage, a little garden, nothing outside of them, and only a mother within. At seven years old to have this brought home to him, was early, very early. He would not understand how it was. If he heard, even at that early age, that he might have had another pony, another household to conquer by his pretty ways, and all the usual indulgences and pleasant things, but for his mother, would Osy’s childish affection bear that test? Would he like her better than his pony? And, oh! still deeper, more penetrating question, was she better than the pony, better than the larger upbringing, the position of one who is born to command, the freedom of life, the influence of men, the “every advantage” of which Gerald Piercey had spoken? Would she, a woman not very cheerful, and who must in future be very full of cares and calculations how to make both ends meet, would she be better for him than all that? She? What question could be more penetrating? “It would be better for the child.” Would it be better for him? Sometimes it comes about that in the very midst of the happiness of life, with every sail full, and the sun shining, and the horizon clear, there comes a sudden catastrophe, and some young woman whose life has been that of the group of children at her knee, has suddenly to stop and stand by with dumb anguish, and see one and another taken away from her by kind friends, kindest friends! benefactors only to be blessed and praised! while all around her other friends congratulate her, bid her feel that she must not stand in the way of the children, of their real advantage! Is it to their real advantage? Is it better to be the children of kindness or the children of love? to be brought up in your own home or in another’s? Oh, poor little mother; often you have to smile out of your broken heart and bear it! Margaret Osborne had but one thing in the world; but she would have done like the others, and smiled and endured even to be severed from that only possession, had she been sure. Who can be sure? She said to herself that love, and his own home, and the ties of nature were best. And then Gerald Piercey’s words came back and stung her like fiery serpents: “A man’s career, under men’s influence, or——” Or what? A poor woman’s influence, a woman who was herself a failure, whom nobody cared much for under the sun. Which—which would be the best for Osy? This is the kind of argument that tears the heart in two. It is full of anguish while it is going on: and after the decision is made, it lays up poignant and dreadful recollections. If I had not done that, but the other—if I had not sent away my child into the careless hands of strangers; or, on the other hand, if I had not been so confident of myself; if I could but have seen how much better for him would have been the man’s influence, the man’s career!
This was the war that Margaret was waging with herself while she had to meet the immediate troubles of the day. It was inconceivable how soon the great house was filled with Patty’s presence, how soon it became hers, from roof to basement, how she pervaded it in all the rooms at once, so to speak, so that nothing was out of her sharp sight for more than two minutes. Mrs. Osborne had retired upstairs with her heart full when she left Colonel Piercey in the hall; but in the restlessness of a disturbed mind she came down again about an hour afterwards, partly to put a stop, for a time, to that endless argument, partly to write a letter which she had promised, to inform Lady Hartmore of what had happened, and partly, perhaps, out of that curiosity and painful inclination to hasten a catastrophe which comes to the mind in the storms of existence. It is true that she had made up her mind to leave Greyshott, but she could not do so as Gerald, a visitor, did, nor was she sure how she could best arrange her retirement with dignity and composure. She felt that there must be no semblance of a quarrel, nor would she make matters worse for Gervase’s wife by allowing it to appear to the county that her first act had been to drive Gervase’s cousin out of the house. She had decided to wait a little, to endure the new régime until she could quietly detach herself without any shock to her old uncle or commotion in the house. Yet it cannot be denied that Margaret’s nerves were very much disturbed, and that she was conscious of Patty’s entrance while she sat writing her letter, and felt her heart jump when that active, bustling little step became again and again audible. Margaret was seated with her back to the door, but the sound of this step, returning and returning, betrayed to her very clearly the impatience with which her presence was regarded. And her letter did not make much progress. She foresaw the coming attack, and she did not forestall it as she might have done by going away. At last a voice as sharp as the step broke the listening silence of the room.
“Margaret Osborne! how long are you going to be writing that letter? The housemaids are waiting, and I must have this room thoroughly done out. It wants it, I am sure! Oh, take your time! but if you will let me know about when you are likely to be done——”
“I can finish my letter upstairs, if it is necessary,” Margaret said, turning round.
“Well, I think generally that is the best way. The library’s generally supposed to be the gentlemen’s room in a house. I mean to have the drawing-room put in order, and to use that, as it ought to be used. But not just this week, and poor mother so lately buried. I don’t know what your feelings may be, but I can’t sit in a dingy place like this,” Patty said. “Oh, take your time,” she added, with fine irony; “but if you could tell me within half an hour or so when you are likely to have done——”
“I will finish my letter in my own room.”
“If I was you,” said Patty, “I’d write them all there in future. New folks make new ways. I am very particular about my house. I like everything kept in its proper place—and every person,” she added significantly. “The servants can’t serve two masters. That is in the Bible, you know, so it must be true.”
“I do not think,” said Margaret, with a faint smile, “that you will be troubled by their devotion to me.”
“No; I suppose you have let yourself be put upon,” said Patty; “because, though you think yourself one of the family, you ain’t exactly one of the family, and, of course, they see that. It’s not good for a houseful of servants to have a sort of a lady, neither one thing nor another, neither a mistress nor a servant, in the house. It teaches them to be disrespectful to their betters, because they know you can’t do anything to them. I would rather pension poor relations off than have them about the house putting everything out.”
“It will not be necessary in my case,” cried Margaret, with a sudden flame of anger and shame enveloping her all over. “I had fully intended to leave Greyshott, but wished to avoid any appearance of—— any shock to my uncle.”
“Oh, take your time!” cried Patty, with a toss of her head; and she called to the housemaids, who appeared timorous and undecided at the door. “Come here, and I’ll show how I wish you to settle all this in future,” she said. “Oh, Mrs. Osborne’s going! You needn’t mind for her.”