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The Cuckoo in the Nest. Volume 2/2
CHAPTER XXXIV
This, however, was after all but a small matter; it was not actual misfortune. Patty, indeed, felt it much, partly on account of Jerningham and the other servants, who she felt must triumph in this non-recognition of her claims; and also a little for herself, for it was an extraordinary change from the perpetual coming and going of the Seven Thorns, and all the admiration and respect which she had there, the jokes, and the laughter and the talk, which if not refined, were good enough for Patty Hewitt – to the condition of having no one to speak to, not a soul – except old Sir Giles and her own Softy, whose conversation clever Patty could not be said to have enjoyed at any time. It was very dull work going on from day to day with nothing better than poor old Sir Giles’ broken talk, which was about himself and his affairs – not about her, naturally the most interesting subject to Patty. Many times she was tempted to go upstairs and sit with Jerningham to unbosom herself and relieve her mind of all the unspoken talk, and make a companion and confidante of her maid. Jerningham was a person much better trained and educated than Patty. She could have instructed her in many of the ways of the fine ladies which Mrs. Piercey could only guess at, or painfully copy out of novels; but perhaps, if her mistress had yielded to this impulse it would have been Jerningham who would have held back, knowing her place and desiring no confidences. Patty, however, also knew her place, and that to confide in a servant was a fatal thing, so that she never yielded to this temptation. But how dull it was! It is a fine thing to be the mistress of a great house, to have a large household under your orders, to be served hand and foot, as Patty herself would have said; but never to have a gossip, never a jest with any one, she for whom every passer-by had once had a cheerful word, to have nobody to admire either herself or her dresses, to envy her good fortune, to wonder at her grandeur! that takes the glory out of any victory. Would Cæsar have cared to come back with all the joy and splendour of a triumphal procession had there been nobody to look at him? Patty had succeeded to the extent of her highest dreams, but, alas! there was nobody to see.
That, however, was merely negative, and there was always the hope that it might not last. She took her seat in the drawing-room every day with perennial expectation, still believing that somebody must come; and, no doubt, in the long run, her expectation would have come true. But Patty soon had actual trouble far more important than any mere deprivation. She had been afraid of Sir Giles, over whom her victory had been easy, and she had been afraid of the servants, whom she had now completely under her foot; but she never had any fear about the Softy, her husband, who had been her dog – a slave delighted with his chains – who had desired nothing better than to do what she told him, and to follow her about wherever she went. That Gervase should become the only rebel against her, that he should escape her authority and influence, and take his own way in opposition to hers, was a thing which had not entered into any of her calculations – Gervase, whose devotion had been too much, who had wearied her out with his slavish dependence on her, how had he emancipated himself? It was inconceivable to Patty. She had felt sure that whatever happened she could always control him, always keep him in subjection, guide him with a look, be absolute mistress of his mind and all his wishes. The first revelation of something more in Softy which she had not calculated upon had come when she first found the difficulty of amusing him in the long evenings (lit with so many wax candles, surrounded with so many glories!). Then it was revealed to Patty that she was not enough even for that fool. Then it began to dawn upon her faintly that the Seven Thorns itself had something to do with the attraction, and the excitement of the suspense, and the restraint and expectation in which she had held him: all these adjuncts were over now; he had Patty all his own, and he did not find Patty enough. Was that possible? could it be true?
Perhaps there was something in the very ease of Patty’s triumph that had to do with this. Had his mother lived, and had Gervase experienced that protection of having a wife to stand by him, which he had anticipated, it is very likely that this result would have been long delayed, if, indeed, it had ever appeared at all. But there was nobody now against whom Gervase required to be protected. His father had never opposed him, and now that Sir Giles was, like everybody else in the house, under Patty’s sway, not even the faint excitement of a momentary struggle with him chequered the Softy’s well-being. The consequence was that he, as well as Patty, found it dull. He had no one to play with him, he longed for the movement of the alehouse, the sound of the carts and carriages, the slow jokes in the parlour, the smoke and the fun – also the beer; and perhaps that most of all. It was hard work even when Patty was devoted to his constant amusement, for the Softy had no intervals; he wanted to be entertained all the time: and when she flagged for a moment, he became sullen and tugged at his chain. But when Sir Giles came on the scene, and Patty’s attention was distracted and her cares given to the old man, offence and sullen disgust arose in the mind of Gervase. He would not join in the game, as Patty called him to do; neither father nor son indeed wanted a third in the game: and Gervase, duller than ever and angry too, went to sleep for a night or two, tried to amuse himself another evening or two with cat’s cradle or the solitaire board – then flung these expedients aside in impatience, and finally strolled off, through the soft, warm darkness of the night, to the Seven Thorns. The Seven Thorns! it was poetic justice upon Patty, but that made it only the harder to bear.
Then there came upon Patty one of those curses of life which fall upon women with a bitterness and horror of which probably the inflictors of the pain are never fully aware. It would have been bad enough if this had befallen her in her natural position as the wife of a country tradesman or small farmer. Domestic misery is the same in one class as in another; yet it would be vain to deny the aggravations that a higher position adds to primitive anguish of this kind. The cottager is not so much ashamed of her husband’s backslidings. In many cases they are the subject of the long monologue of complaint that runs through her life. They cannot be hid, and they become a sort of possession, the readiest excuse for every failing of her own. But that the young master should stumble night after night up to Greyshott; that he should be seen by all the neighbourhood drinking among the dull rustics at the Seven Thorns; that a crowd of servants should listen and peep to hear his unsteady step, and his boisterous laugh, and the stammerings of excuse or explanations, or worse still, of noisy mirth, bursting from him in the middle of the quiet night – was something more terrible still. Patty – on that first occasion, when, long after every one else was in bed, she stole downstairs to admit him by that little door near the beech avenue, to which his unsteady footsteps naturally turned – was horrified and angry beyond description; but she did not doubt she could put a stop to it. Not for a moment did she hesitate as to her power. It should never happen again, she said to herself. Once was nothing. Henceforward she would be on her guard. He should not escape from her another time. She did not even upbraid Gervase – it was her own fault, who had never thought of that, taken no precautions; but it should never, never, she said to herself, with, perhaps unnecessary asseverations, happen again.
Gervase, upbraided as in sport by his laughing wife for forsaking her, as if he had been a naughty child, did nothing but laugh and triumph in reply. “Weren’t they just astonished to see me!” he said: “your father opened his mouth like this,” opening his own large mouth with the moist hanging under-lip. “You should ha’ seen him, you should ha’ seen him, Patty – like I was a ghost! ‘Hallo!’ said he, and ‘Hallo!’ said I, ‘here I am, you see.’ There wasn’t one of them could say a word; but afterwards I stood treat, and we had a jolly night.”
“And, oh, how you did smell of beer, you naughty fellow, when you came in!”
“Did I? Well, not without reason, neither,” said Gervase, with his loud laugh; “a set of jolly old cocks when you set them going. We only wanted you there in your old blue dress and your apron.”
“That you will never see again, I can tell you; and it isn’t very nice of you, Gervase, wishing your wife in such a place.”
“It’s a good enough place, and it’s where you came from,” said Gervase. “But I told ’em,” he said, nodding his head, “what an awful swell you have grown – nothing good enough for you. Didn’t the old fellows laugh and nod their old heads. Ho, ho! He, he!”
“Gervase, dear,” said his wife, “you won’t go there again? you won’t go and leave me all by myself, longing and wondering when you’d come back? I thought you’d gone and fallen asleep somewhere. I thought every minute you’d come into the room. You won’t go again, Gervase, dear, and leave your poor Patty alone?”
“Why, you had father,” Gervase said.
“Oh, papa; yes, dear, and I kept on playing to amuse him, dear old gentleman, and to keep it from him that you had gone out. If he had known where you were, it would have vexed him sadly, you know it would.”
“It vexed them both,” said Gervase, “when I went there after you; but I didn’t mind – nor you either, Patty.”
“A young single man has to have his liberty,” said Patty, “but when he’s married – You wouldn’t have gone off and left me – your Patty, whom you said you were so fond of – in those days?”
“Ah,” said the Softy, with the wisdom of his kind, “but I’ve got you now fast, Patty, at home waiting for me; so I can take my pleasure a bit, and have you all the same.” He looked at her with a cynical light in his dull eyes. He, and she also, felt the strength of the argument. No need to please her now, and conciliate her in her own ideas about beer and the parlour of the Seven Thorns. She could no longer cast him off, or leave him in the lurch. Consequently, Gervase felt himself free to indulge his tastes in his own way, whatever Patty might think. She was struck silent by that new light in his eyes. He was not capable of argument, or of anything but sticking to what he had once said, with all the force of his folly. She looked at him, and, for the first time, saw what was before her. It had never occurred to her before that he had the strength to resist her, or that she could not call him to her like a dog when her better sense saw it to be necessary. A docile fool is sometimes contemptible enough; but a fool resistant, a being whom reason cannot teach, who has no power of being convinced! Patty felt a cold dew come over her forehead. She saw what was before her with momentary giddiness, as if she had looked over the edge of a precipice. But she did not lose hope. She sent next day an imperative note to her father requiring his attendance: that he either should resist or refuse her call did not come into her mind. “Come up to Greyshott,” she wrote, “at once, for I have something to say to you;” as she might have written to one of her servants. But Richard Hewitt was not a man who could be defied with impunity. He never appeared in obedience to her summons; he took no notice of it. He replied only by that silence which is the most terrible of all kinds of resistance. And it was not long before Gervase disappeared again. After the second catastrophe, Patty swept down upon the Seven Thorns in her carriage – an imposing figure in her silk and crape. But Hewitt was not impressed even by the sight of her grandeur. “I’ll not refuse no customer for you – there! and you needn’t think you can come over me,” he cried. “By George! to order me about – what I’m to do and whom I’m to have in this house. It’s like your impudence; but I tell you, Miss, I’ll see you d – d first,” the angry man roared, bringing his clenched fist down upon the table, and making all the glasses ring. Patty was cowed, and had not a word to say.
And then there began for the triumphant young woman an ordeal enough to daunt the stoutest heart. It was true that she had not, like many a wife in such circumstances, the anguish of love to give a sting to everything. Patty had used the Softy partly as the instrument of her own elevation; but his folly had not disgusted or pained her as it might have done under other circumstances. She had a sober affection for him even, as her own property, a thing that belonged to her, and felt strongly the impulse of protecting him from scandal and injury: more, he was so involved still in all her hopes of advancement, that she was as much alarmed for the betrayal of his bad behaviour, as if (like so many) she had feared the loss of a situation or work which brought in the living of the family. And it must be added for Patty that she did her very best to keep all knowledge of Gervase’s conduct from his father. She sat and played his game of backgammon, inventing almost every evening a new excuse. “Isn’t he a lazy boy? He’s gone to sleep again,” was at first the easiest explanation. But Patty felt that would not do always. “What do you think, dear papa? Gervase has taken to reading,” she said; “I gave him a nice novel, all hunting and horses, and he got so interested in it.” “He never was any good outside a horse himself,” Sir Giles said, with a little grumble. But he was easily satisfied. He asked nothing more than to have his mind relieved from that care for Gervase which Lady Piercey had always insisted he should share. “He’s got his wife to look after him, now,” Sir Giles said, when Dunning hinted a doubt that Mr. Gervase was sometimes out of an evening. He was thankful to wash his hands of all responsibility. That apparent selfishness of old age, which consists very much of weariness and conscious inability to bear the burden, came over him more and more every day. Had such a thing been possible as that Gervase should have married a girl in his own position, and made her miserable, the good in Sir Giles would have been roused to support and uphold the victim. But Patty knew very well what she was doing. Patty had accepted all the responsibilities. She was able to take care of herself. He had his wife to take care of him, and to keep him off his father. Patty accepted her share of that tacit bargain honestly; and, as for Sir Giles, it must be said that he was easily satisfied – received her explanations, and gave her as little trouble as possible. He nodded his head, and went on with his game. Perhaps, if truth had been told, it was a relief to the old man when the Softy – strolling about restlessly from place to place, interfering with the play, calling off his wife’s attention, always troublesome and always ungainly – was not there.
CHAPTER XXXV
Patty had been married only about four months, when an incident happened that brought this period of humiliation and trouble after her triumph to a climax. The summer had gone, the dark days and long nights of early winter had come back, and Gervase’s almost nightly visits to the Seven Thorns were complicated by the storms and rains of the season, which, however, were rarely bad enough to keep him indoors. Had Patty been free to keep a constant watch upon him, it was her opinion that she could have prevented his continual escape into the night. She could have made him so comfortable at home. By moments she had visions of what she could do to reclaim her husband and satisfy him, if the dreadful restraint of the old man and his nightly game were withdrawn. Once or twice, when Sir Giles was indisposed, she had, indeed, managed to do this. She had brewed him hot and fragrant drinks to take the place of the beer, and exhausted herself in talk to amuse him. Poor Patty! she thought to herself that surely she must, at least, be as amusing as the old fellows in the parlour at the Seven Thorns. Many a woman has thought the same: a brilliant young creature, full of knowledge and spirit, and wit and pleasantness, might not she think herself as attractive as the dull gossip of the club? But it is a dangerous conflict to enter into, and the race is certainly not to the swift nor the battle to the strong in this respect. And Patty was not an amusing conversationalist. She knew the methods of rustic flirtation, and how to hold off and call on a provoked and tantalised lover; and she could be very lively in talk about herself and what she meant to do; but the first was no longer a method to be employed with Gervase, who was now brutally conscious of being Patty’s proprietor; and he was not even so much interested in what she meant to do as he once had been. He much preferred the heavy jokes, the great guffaw, the half-mocking attention that was paid to himself in the parlour at the Seven Thorns. He was not in the least aware that the big laugh that went round, and in which he himself joined with a sensation of truly enjoying himself, was chiefly at him and his folly. And his freedom to do what he liked, to drink as much as he liked, and babble and maunder at his pleasure, was very sweet to Gervase: he liked it better than anything else in the world; perhaps not better than Patty if there had been a conflict between the two – but then, as he said, he had Patty all the same whatever he might do, and why shouldn’t he enjoy himself when it was so entirely in his power?
But when Patty sat the whole evening through playing backgammon with Sir Giles, her ears on the alert for every sound, her hopes sometimes raised by a footstep on the stairs to imagine that he had not gone out after all, or her fears excited by some noise to the terror of believing that he had come back earlier than usual, and was coming in – like the fool he was, to betray himself to his father! it was not wonderful if she looked sometimes with a suppressed bitterness at her old father-in-law fumbling at his game. What good was his life to that old man? He could not walk a step without assistance. He was bound to that chair whatever happened. He had nobody of his own age to speak to, no one except people of another generation, whom he was keeping out of what Patty called “their own.” “Oh, if the old man were out of the way, how soon I could put everything right!” Patty said to herself. Though she had indeed failed, and received a grievous defeat, her confidence in herself was not shaken. It was only circumstances, she thought, that were to blame. If she had things in her own hands, if her evenings were unencumbered, if she could devote herself to her husband as she had intended to do, let us see how long the Seven Thorns would have stood against her! And, oh, what good was his life to that old man! If he were to die, what a blessed relief it would be! Full of aches and pains, his nerves shattered, unable to keep from crying when he talked, unable to think of anything except his walk (walk! in his chair driven by Dunning), and his dinner, which was chiefly slops, and his cups of beef tea, and his drops, and his game at night, which he was allowed to win to please him! Poor Sir Giles! It was not, indeed, a very pleasing programme: but it is to be supposed that it did not seem so miserable to him as to Patty, for Sir Giles showed no inclination whatever to die. He might have thought, if he had been an unselfish old man, that he was a burden, that he kept the young people from enjoying their lives, while getting so little good out of his own – that if he were but out of the way Patty would be my lady, and free to look after her own husband and keep him straight; but he did not do so. She sat all the evening through, and said: “Yes, dear papa,” and “How capitally you play!” and “What luck you have!” and “I am nowhere beside you, dear papa,” smiling and beaming upon him, and, to do her justice, exerting all her powers to amuse him; but all the time saying to herself, “Oh, what good is his life to him! Oh, how can he go on like this, keeping Gervase out of his right place, and keeping me that I can’t do anything for my own husband! Oh, that we had the house to ourselves and I were free to keep Gervase straight!”
One evening, Patty had been feeling more keenly than usual this keen contrariety and hindrance of everything. Sir Giles had sat longer than he generally did, sending off Dunning when he appeared, demanding an hour’s grace and another game. He was in higher spirits than usual. “Come, Patty,” he said, “you’re not tired. Have your revenge and give me a good beating. I’m in high feather to-night. I don’t care that! for Dunning. Come back in an hour, and perhaps I’ll go to bed.”
“ ‘Alf an hour, Sir Giles: and that’s too long,” Dunning said.
“Half an hour, dear papa – you must not really tempt Providence by staying any longer,” said Mrs. Gervase. “Have my revenge? Oh, no! but I’ll give you another chance of beating me all to atoms. Isn’t Sir Giles well to-night, Dunning? He looks ten years younger.”
“He’s excited with all that play,” said Dunning. “I don’t ’old with so much backgammon. If he’s ill in the morning I wash my hands of it. He knows well enough hisself he didn’t ought to be so late.”
“The white for me as usual,” said Sir Giles. “I’m a sad, selfish, old fellow, always appropriating the winning colour, eh, Patty? Never mind, you are coming on beautifully – you play a very pretty little game. I’m training you to beat myself, my dear, if not to-night, well, some other night. Come along, don’t let’s waste any time if that old curmudgeon gives us only half an hour.”
Patty drew her chair to the table again with her most smiling aspect. “Here I am, dear papa,” she said. The renovated drawing-room, if it was, perhaps, in the taste of a past time and a little heavy and ungraceful, was a handsome room, abundantly lighted, with an atmosphere of warmth and luxurious comfort; and Patty in her black silk, with her hair carefully dressed à la Jerningham, and her dress from a fashionable mantua-maker, recommended by that accomplished attendant – was as good an imitation of what a lady at home ought to be, as it would be easy to find; and as she sat there ministering to her old father-in-law, keeping him in comfort and good humour, giving up her time and her attention to play over again the same monotonous unending game – the picture, both moral and physical, was one that would have gained the admiration of any spectator. But as she drew her chair again towards the table, there flashed across Patty’s mind a remembrance of another scene: the parlour at the Seven Thorns full of a cloud of smoke and a smell of beer; the rustic customers, with their slow talk, holding forth each to his neighbour, calling with knocks upon the floor and table for further supplies; while she, Patty, the same girl, hastened to see what was wanted, and to bring them what they called for – she, Mrs. Piercey, the wife of the heir of Greyshott, the mistress of all this great house! And it was only four months ago. How clearly she saw that scene! The same thing would be going on to-night while she played backgammon with Sir Giles, and smiled, and talked to her dear papa – and with a thrill of mingled rage, vexation, and anxiety, Patty felt herself deserted and her husband there! It gave her a pang which was all the more keen from her confidence in what she could do, and her sense of the bondage which prevented her from doing it. Oh, why should this old man go on with his cackle and his dice, and his life which was no good to any one? Why, why couldn’t he die and set her free? “Here I am, dear papa,” she said.
“Perhaps that sleepy fellow, Gervase, will wake up and appear before we’ve done,” said Sir Giles. “I wouldn’t humour him too much, my dear. It’s one thing to be devoted to your husband, and another thing to let him muddle his brains away. He sleeps a great deal too much, that’s my opinion. He’s not too bright at the best of times, and if you let him drowse about like this it’ll do him harm – it’ll do him harm. I don’t see that he gets up any earlier in the morning for sleeping like this at night. His poor mother would never have permitted it. Sixes, my dear. No, no, you mustn’t humour him too much.”
“What luck you have, dear papa! Oh, yes, I know, I know, he’s humoured too much. But some need more sleep than others: and don’t you think, on the whole, it does him good? His mind comes out so much; he’s so sensible when you talk to him. I couldn’t wish for better advice than Gervase gives.”
“I’m very glad to hear you say so, my dear; there’s a great deal in him, poor boy; I always said so; more than anybody knows. But I wouldn’t let him sleep like that. What, Dunning, you old rascal, here again already? It can’t be half an hour yet.”
“Oh, yes, dear papa,” said Patty, “it is the half-hour; and that last throw has quite made an end of me. Good-night, and I hope you’ll sleep well. And I’ll go, as you say, and wake up that lazy boy. He is a lazy boy. But I’ll try and break him of it now you’ve told me. I thought it was best to humour him. But I’ll break him of it, now I know what you think.”
“Do, my dear, do!” said Sir Giles, nodding his head at her as he was wheeled away. Dunning gave Mrs. Gervase a look behind his master’s chair. Ah, you may keep such a secret from those whom it affects most, but to keep it from the servants is more than any one can do! Dunning knew well enough where Gervase was. He knew how Gervase returned home, at what hour, and in what condition. Dunning, in addition, thought he knew that it was Patty’s doing, part of some deep-laid scheme of hers, and could not divine that the poor young woman’s heart was beating under that fine gown with terror and anxiety. She gave a little gasp of relief when the sound of Sir Giles’ chair died away, and his door was closed audibly. And then she rang to have the lights put out, telling the butler that Sir Giles and Mr. Piercey had both gone to bed; and then Patty, heroic as any martyr, placed herself under Jerningham’s hands to have her hair brushed, going through all the routine that nobody might think from her demeanour that anything was wrong. She was quivering with anxiety in every limb when she sent the maid away; and then, in her dressing-gown, stole downstairs to open the side door, and strain her ears for the heavy footstep stumbling through the blackness of the night.
Poor Patty! what thoughts went through her mind as she kept that vigil! Fury and determination to do something desperate, to stop it at all hazards – and that this should be the last time, the very last! She would take him by the shoulder and shake the very life out of him rather than that this should go on. She would fling herself at his feet and implore him – alas, Patty knew very well that to implore and to threaten were alike useless, and that the fool would only open his moist mouth and laugh in her face. What could she do? what could she do? She would make an appeal to her father, she would threaten him with the loss of his licence, she would bribe him with all the money she could scrape together, she did not know what she would not do – but to bear this longer was impossible! And then she fell into a dreary calm, and thought over all that had happened, her wonderful triumph, the change in everything, the contrast. And yet what advance had she made if she never, never could separate herself from the Seven Thorns? Whether it was she who was there or her husband, what did it matter? Who would ever acknowledge them or give them their own place if this were to go on? Oh, if these county people had but done as they ought, if they had but shown themselves friendly and taken some notice of the young pair, people who had known Gervase all his life, and ought to have felt for him! Patty shed a few hot tears over the unkindness of the world, and then, as is so natural, her mind went back upon her own hopes, and the ideal she had formed of her life which, as yet, was so little realised. She had thought of herself as driving about the country, paying visits at those grand houses which had been to her as the abodes of the blest; her husband at her side, well-dressed and well set up, with everybody saying how much he had improved! And invitations raining upon them, and fortune smiling everywhere. Sir Gervase and Lady Piercey! how delightfully it had seemed to sound in her fortunate ears! To be sure all this could not be realised until poor old Sir Giles had been fully convinced that it was not for his advantage to live any longer; but that might have happened any day. Oh, if he could but be convinced of it now, and leave her free to care for her husband! Was not Gervase her first duty? Why should this old man go on living, keeping his son out of his own?
And then Patty’s mind went back to the Seven Thorns, that place from which it appeared she could not get free. She saw herself there before anything was yet settled, while all her life was before her. As she sat alone and shivered and listened, the image of Patty, light-hearted and free, came up before her like a picture. How busy she had been, how everybody had admired her, even the old fellows in the parlour! And the young ones, how they had watched for a word with her, and some had almost come to blows! Roger, for instance, who had made so much fun of the Softy, who had looked such a gallant fellow in his brown velveteen coat and his red tie! She remembered how he had appealed to her not to do it, not to bind herself to a fool. The impudent fellow! to talk so of Gervase – Sir Gervase Piercey that was soon to be! Oh, poor Gervase, poor Gervase! he was not, perhaps, very wise, but he could still be set right again and kept straight if she were but free to give herself up altogether to the care of him. Roger Pearson could never have been anything but a country fellow living in a cottage. It was true that he was handsome, and all that. Patty seemed to see him, too, though she did not wish it, with the light in his eyes, looking at her with his air of mastery, the Adonis of the village. Every girl in the place had wanted Roger, but he had eyes for only her. Why did he come before her now? She did not want to see him or to think of him – far from that. There was not a fibre of the wanton in Patty’s nature. She had no understanding of the women who, with husbands of their own, could think of any other man. And if she had the choice to make over again, she knew that she would do the same; but still she could not help thinking of Roger Pearson, though she had no idea why.
