Who is not coming, Mr. Pearson? said Patty, commanding herself with a great effort; some one you were expecting to meet?
You cant come over me like that, Patty, said Roger. Lord, a nice lass like you that might have the best fellow in the village a-straining and a-wearing your eyes looking after a Softy! and him not coming neither not a step! They knows better than that.
I dont know what you mean, Mr. Pearson, said Patty, feeling herself enveloped from head to foot in a flush of rage and shame. I dont know as I ever was known as one that looked after Softies meaning poor folks that have lost their wits, I suppose. Youre one of them, anyhow, that speaks like that to me.
I wouldnt if I were you, said the young man, in his deep voice a fellow thats not fit to tie your shoe, though he may be the squires son. Dont you think thatll ever come to any good. Theyll never let you be my lady; dont you think it. Theyll turn him out o doors, and theyll cut him off with a shilling; and then youll find yourself without a penny and a fool on your hands instead of a man.
Is this something out of a story book, or is it out of his own head? said Patty looking round her as if consulting an impartial audience, anyway, it has nothing to say to me. Ill send Ellen to you for your orders, Mr. Pearson, for Ive got a lot to do to-night, and I cant stand here to listen to your romancing. Ellen, she cried, just see to that gentleman. She went off with all the honours of war, but Pattys heart was likely to burst. She marched upstairs with a candle to the rooms she had been arranging so carefully, and locked the door, and sat down upon the sofa and gave way to a torrent of tears. Was it all to come to nothing, after all her splendid dreams? She knew as well as any one that he was a fool and could be persuaded into anything. How did she know that his mother, if she tried, could not turn him round her little finger, as she, Patty, had been certain she could do? How could she tell, in the battle between Lady Piercey of Greyshott and Patty of the Seven Thorns, that it was she who would triumph and not the great lady? It was all Patty could do not to shriek out her exasperation, her misery and rage; not to pull down the curtains and dash the furniture to pieces. She caught her handkerchief with her teeth and tore it to keep herself quiet and the fifty pounds in the bag burnt her breast like a blister. What if it was to come to nothing, after all?
CHAPTER X
trying in his fatuous way to please his parents. It was a very dull round to him who had known the livelier joys of the Seven Thorns, the beer and the tobacco in the parlour, and Patty flitting about, throwing him a word from time to time. It seemed but a poor sort of paradise to sit among the slow old topers in the smoky room and imbibe the heavy beer; but it is unfortunately a kind of enjoyment which many young men prefer to the fireside at home, even without any addition of a Patty; and the poor Softy was not in this respect so very much inferior to the best and cleverest. The fireside at home, it must be allowed, was not very exciting. To be sure, the room itself was a very different room from that of the Seven Thorns. It was not the drawing-room in which the Piercey family usually sat in the evening, for the drawing-room was upstairs, and Sir Giles could not be taken up without great difficulty in his wheeled chair. It was the library, a large long room, clothed with the mellow tones and subdued gilding of old books, making a background which would have been quite beautiful to an artist. There was a row of windows on one side veiled in long curtains, and between these windows a series of family portraits almost as long as the windows, full length, not very visible in the dim light, affording a little glimpse of colour, and a face here and there looking out from that height upon the little knot of living people below; but the Pierceys of the past were not remarkable any more than the present Pierceys. A shaded lamp was suspended by a very long chain from the high roof, which was scarcely discernible going up so far, with those glimmers of bookcases and tall old portraits leading towards the vague height above; beneath it was a small round table, at which Lady Piercey sat in a great chair with her bright-coloured work; on the other side was Sir Giles among his cushions, with his backgammon board on a stand beside him, where sometimes Margaret, sometimes Dunning played with him till bedtime. Parsons, on the other hand, was so frequently in attendance on her mistress that the two old servants might be taken as part of the family circle. When Margaret took her place at the backgammon board, Dunning had an hours holiday, and retired to the much brighter atmosphere of the servants hall or the housekeepers room. And when Dunning played with Sir Giles, Margaret attended upon Lady Piercey to thread her needles, and select the shades of the silk, and Parsons was set free. The one who was never set free was Mrs. Osborne, whose evenings in this dim room between the two old people were passed in an endless monotony which sometimes made her giddy. The dull wheel of life went round and round for her, and never stopped or had any difference in it. From year to year the routine was the same.