I should like to know, said Patty, sharply, what kind of company youve been keeping, where they dare to speak of me as Patty of the Seven Thorns? And I suppose you didnt knock the fellow down that said it, you poor creature! youre not man enough for that, though I know some said Patty, with an air of defiance. She had by this time carried out all her operations, and even drawn the beer, and waved off the thirsty customer before her, driving him, as if he had been a flock of geese, into the parlour, with its newly-sanded floor.
There! she said, setting down her tray with a little violence; its good stuff enough, but it puts no more heart and strength into you than if you was a mouse. Too much is as bad, or maybe worse, than none at all. And, I tell you, I know some that would no more hear me named disrespectful like that or any way but Miss Hewitt, Mr. Hewitt of the Seven Thorns daughter than I would demean myself to carrying on like a barmaid with every one that comes for a glass of beer into this house.
I beg your pardon, Patty, said the young man; I meant no harm. When youre Mrs. Gervase Piercey theres never one of them will dare mention your name without taking off his hat.
Oh, you block! cried Patty, exasperated. She paused, however, with an evident sense that to make her meaning clear to him would be impossible; yet added, after a moment, If I cant be respected as Miss Hewitt, Ill never seek respect under no mans name. Theres your beer, Mr. Gervase; and as soon as youve drunk it I advise you to go back to your parents, for youll get no more here.
Oh! Patty, dont you be so cruel.
Ill be as cruel as I think proper. And Ill draw fathers beer for them as I think proper, and nobody else. Youre the spoiled child at the Hall, Mr. Gervase, but no one cares that for you here!
And she, too, snapped her thumb and forefinger, in scorn of any subjection to ordinary prejudices, and shone radiant, in her defiance, in the homely scene to which she gave so much life. Patty was not a beautiful girl, as perhaps you may suppose. She had bright eyes, very well able to flash with indignation when necessary, or even with rage. She had a fine country complexion, with the gift, which is not so usual among the lowly born, of changing colour as her sentiments changed: flashing forth in wrath, and calming down in peace; and when she was excited, with an angry sparkle in her eyes, and the colour rising and falling, there was a faux air of beauty about her, which impressed the minds of those who exposed themselves to any such blaze of resentment. Her features, however, were not very good, and there was a hardness in the lines, which, no doubt, would strengthen in later years. She had a trim figure, a brisk light step, an air of knowing her own mind, and fully intending to carry out all its purposes, which made a great impression upon the shiftless and languid generally, and upon Gervase Piercey in particular. Perhaps Patty had a little too much the air, in her sharp intelligence, of the conventional soubrette , to have charmed a squires son of greater intellectual perceptions.
But Gervase knew nothing about soubrettes , or any other types, theatrical or otherwise. He knew vaguely what he saw, but no more; and that sharp intelligence, that brisk energy, that air of knowing her own mind, was more captivating to him than anything he had ever seen. He, whom everybody snubbed, who was accustomed to be laughed at, who knew so much as to know that he never knew what to do until somebody told him, and often did not understand what was wanted of him then threw himself upon Patty with all the heavy weight of his nature. He had never seen anything so admirable, so strong, or so fair. She never was afraid to do whatever she had a mind to. She never stood swaying from one foot to another unable to make up her mind. She was all swiftness, firmness, alertness ready for anything. He almost liked her to be angry with him, though it sometimes reduced him to abject despair, for the sake of that sparkle, that flush, that exhibition of high spirit. Nobody, Gervase felt, would put upon him while Patty was near; nobody would push him aside, bid him to get out of the way. Even his father did this; and, what was still more, his mother too, when exasperated. But they would not, if Patty was there. Gervase was not only in love with her, which he was to the full extent of his abilities in that way, but he felt that his salvation lay in Patty, and that, with her to back him up, nobody would trample upon him any more.
He hoped to find her in a milder humour when he came back in the evening; for in the meantime it was beyond anything he could say or do to charm Patty back into good humour. She went back to her sweeping, making the corners of the kitchen floor ring with the energetic broom that pursued every grain of dust into its last refuge there. She would not stop, even to say good morning to him, when he lounged away. But after he was gone Patty relaxed in her fierce industry. She put away the broom, and stood at the window for a moment, with deep thought upon her brow. What was it she was thinking of, bending those brows, drawing in her upper lip in a way she had when her mind was busy? To be, or not to be, that was the question. She was far, very far, from a Hamlet; but that momentous choice was before her, as much as if she had been the mightiest of spirits. When a woman pauses thus upon the threshold of her life, and questions which path she is to take, it is generally easy to guess that the question really is, which man will she marry? Patty was full of ambition as if she had been a princess. And she felt truly as much the child of a fallen house as if Richard Hewitt of the Seven Thorns had been a ruined duke. How far, how very far was she, Patience, the maid of the inn, drawing beer for the customers, compelled to serve every tramp who had twopence to spend from the state of young Miss Patty at the upstairs window, sitting like a lady, doing vandykes of tape for her new petticoats (for she was informed of every incident of those times of family grandeur), to whom Sir Giles took off his hat. She had heard all her life of these once glorious circumstances, and her spirit burned within her to do something to restore herself that eminence; to achieve something that would make Aunt Patty hold her tongue, and own herself outdone. Ah! and here it was lying in her power. Sir Giles might have bowed to old Patty, but never did she have it in her power to become Lady Piercey, if she chose. Lady Piercey! with Greyshott Manor at her command, and all the grandeur which the very best of the previous Hewitts had only seen by grace of the housekeeper. And Patty might one day be the mistress of the housekeeper if she chose! The possibility was enough to thrill her from head to foot; but she had not yet made up her mind. No, splendid as the prospect was, there was yet a great deal to think of before she could make up her mind. She went to the door and gave a hurried glance out, to see the long, listless figure of Gervase Piercey strolling along across the wide stretch of broken land that lay between him and his home. He paused to look back several times as he went along, but Patty would not gratify him with the sight of her looking after him. He was not a lover to be encouraged by such signs of favour, but to be kept down at her feet until she should choose to hold out a gracious finger. Her thoughts were not flattering to him as she looked after him: the long, lazy, listless, useless being. If he did not care so much for me, beer would be the chief thing that Mr. Gervase would care for; coming here in the morning for his glass, the fool, instead of doing something! A man with horses to ride and carriages to drive, and an estate that he might see to, and save his father money! Lord! lord! said Patty to herself, what fools these men are! for the only thing he could do with himself, to get through the morning, was to walk across to the