He looked piteously at her, all astray, and took off his cap, and pushed his fingers through his hair. “I’m sure I don’t know; and yet there was something that I wanted badly to hear. Patty, don’t you make a fool of me like all the rest! If I don’t know what it is, having such a dreadful memory, you do.”
“It’s a wonder as you remembered me at all, Mr. Gervase,” said Patty, giving him a little sting in passing.
“You! I’d never forget you if I lived to be a hundred. I’d forget myself sooner, far sooner, than I’d forget you.”
“But it’s a long time since you’ve seen me, and you’ve forgotten all you wanted of me,” Patty said, with a sharp tone of curiosity in her voice.
“No, I don’t forget; I do know what I want—I want to marry you, Patty. I’ve been obeying all your orders, and trying to please the old folks for nothing but that. But it don’t seem to succeed, somehow,” he said, shaking his head; “somehow it don’t seem to succeed.”
“They will never give their consent to that, Mr. Gervase!”
“No?” he said, doubtfully. “Well, of course you must be right, Patty. They don’t seem to like it when I tell them it’s because of you I’m trying to please them and staying like this at home.”
“You should never have said that,” she cried quickly; “you should have made them think it was all because you were so fond of them, and liked best being at home.”
“But it would be a lie,” said Gervase, simply, “and mother’s awful sharp; she always finds out when you tell her a crammer. Say I may come to-night; do now, Patty—I can’t bear it any more.”
“But you must bear it, Mr. Gervase,” said Patty; “that is, if you really, really, want that to come true.”
“What’s that, Patty?” cried the young man.
“Oh, you——!”—it was only a breath, and ended in nothing. Patty saw that mincing matters was of no use. “I mean about us being married,” she said, turning her head away.
“If I want it!” he cried, “when you know there is nothing in the world I want but that. Nobody would ever put upon me if I had only you to stand by me, Patty. Tell me what I am to do.”
She unfolded her scheme to him after this with little hesitation. He was to continue his attendance at home for a little longer, and to propound to his parents his desire to go to London and see the fine sights there. It took Patty a considerable time to put all this into her lover’s head—what he was to say, which she repeated over to him several times; and what he was to do afterwards, and the extreme importance of not forgetting, of never mentioning her nor the Seven Thorns, nor anything that could recall her to their minds. He was to say that the country was dull (“And so it is—especially at home, and when I can’t see you,” said Gervase), and that he had never seen London since he was a child, and it was a shame he never was trusted to go anywhere or see anything. (“And so it is a great shame.”) When all this was well grafted into his mind, or, at least Patty hoped so, she announced that she had changed her intention and would go no more to Carter’s Wells, but straight home to complete her preparations. And he was allowed to accompany her back almost as far as the high road, then dismissed to return home another way. Patty did not say that she was afraid of meeting Lady Piercey’s carriage; but this was in her mind as she proceeded towards the Seven Thorns, with her head and her parasol high, like an army with banners, not at all afraid now, rather wishing for that encounter. It did take place according to her prevision when she was almost in sight of the group of stunted and aged trees which gave their name to her father’s house. Why Lady Piercey should be passing that way, she herself, perhaps, could scarcely have told. She wanted, it might be, with that attraction of dislike which is as strong as love, to see again the girl who had so much power over Gervase, and of whom he said in his fatuous way, that it was she who was the occasion of his present home-keeping mood; or she wanted, as the angry and suspicious mind always hopes to do, to “catch” Patty and be able to report some flirtation or malicious anecdote of her in the hearing of Gervase. The old lady had strained her neck looking back at the Seven Thorns, which lay all vacant in the westering sunshine, the door open and void, nobody on the outside bench, nobody at the window—a perfectly harmless uninteresting house, piquing the curiosity more than if there had been people about. “I declare, Meg,” Lady Piercey was saying, “that horrid house gets emptier and poorer every day. The man must be going all to ruin, with not so much as a tramp to call for a glass of beer; and serves him right, to bring up that daughter as he has, all show and finery, and good for nothing about such a place.” “The Rector has a great opinion of her,” said Margaret; “they say she is so active and such a good manager.” “Oh! stuff and nonsense,” cried Lady Piercey, “you saw her with your own eyes in light gloves and a parasol, trailing her gown along the road; a girl out of a beershop, a girl——” But here Lady Piercey stopped short with a gasp, for close to the side of the carriage, and almost within hearing, was the same resplendent figure; the hat nodding with its roses; the gown a little too long, and trailing, as was the absurd fashion of that time; the light gloves firmly grasping the parasol, which was held high like an ensign, leaving the girl’s determined and triumphant face fully visible. Patty marched past, giving but one glance to the inmates of the carriage, her colour high and her attitude martial; while the great lady almost fell back upon her cushions, overwhelmed with the suddenness of the encounter. Fortunately Lady Piercey did not see the tremendous nudge which John on the box gave to the coachman. She was too much moved by this startling incident to note any other demonstration of feeling.
“Did you see that?” she asked in a low tone, almost with awe, when that apparition had passed.
“Yes—I saw her. She is too fine for her station, but Aunt——”
“Don’t put any of your buts to me, Meg! Do you think she could hear what we were saying? The bold, brazen creature! passing me by without a bend of her knee, as if she were as good as we are. What is this world coming to when a girl bred up in my own school, in my own parish, that has dropped curtseys to me since ever she was a baby, should dare to pass me by like that?” Lady Piercey, who had grown very red in sudden passion, now grew pale with horror at a state of affairs so terrible. “She looked as if she felt herself the lady, and us nobodies. Meg! do you think Gervase has it in him to marry that girl, and give her my name when your uncle dies! If I thought that, I think it would kill me! at least,” she cried, sitting up with fire in her watery eyes—“it would put me on my mettle, and I’d mince matters no more, but get the doctor’s advice and lock him up.”
“My uncle would never consent to that.”
“Your uncle—— would just do what I wish. There’s not many things he’s ever crossed me in; and all he has have turned out badly. If I could make up my mind to it, it wouldn’t be your uncle that would stop me. I have a great mind to send for the doctor to-night.”
“But Aunt, is it not more likely they have quarrelled,” said Margaret, “since he has been staying at home so faithfully, and never been absent day or night?”
“Do you think that’s it, Meg? or do you think it’s only policy to throw dust in our eyes? Oh, I wish I knew. I wish I knew. Oh, Meg, that I should say it! I feel as if I’d rather he should go out even to that horrible Seven Thorns, than drive us all frantic with staying at home. If he goes on like that another night, I don’t think I can bear it. Oh, it’s all very well for you, sitting patient and smiling! If you were to see your only child sitting there like an idiot, and showing the very page-boy what a fool he is, and gabbling and grinning till you can hardly endure yourself, I wonder—I wonder what you’d say.”
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