“Oh, you think so! it would be better to leave him unmarried, and then when we die Osy would have the chance? For all so clever as you are, Meg, I can see through you there. But Osy has no chance, as you ought to know. There’s the General, and his son, Gerald—a new name in the family, as if the Gileses and the Gervases were not good enough for a younger branch! If it was Osy, bless the child, I don’t know that I should mind so much,” the old lady said in a softened tone, with a tear suddenly starting in the corner of her eye.
“Thank you for thinking that,” said Margaret, subdued. “I know very well it could never be Osy.”
“But there might be another Osy,” said Lady Piercey, putting away that tear with a surreptitious finger. “There never was a brighter man than your uncle, and I’m no fool; and yet you see Gervase—— What’s to hinder Gervase from having a boy like his father if the mother of it was good for anything? A girl, if she had any sense, might see that. What’s one person in a family? The family goes on and swamps the individual. You may be surprised at me using such words; but I’ve thought a deal about it—a great deal about it, Meg. A good girl of a good race, that is what he wants; and, goodness gracious, if she only knew how to set about it, what an easy time she might have!”
To this, Margaret, being probably of another opinion, made no reply; and Lady Piercey, after an expectant and indignant pause, burst forth—“You don’t think so, I suppose? You think the only thing he’s likely to get, or that is fit for him, is this minx at the Seven Thorns?”
“I never thought so,” cried Margaret, “nor believed in that at all—never for a moment.”
“That shows how much you know,” said the old lady, with a snort of anger. “I believe in it, if you don’t. Who is he staying at home to-day and trying to please, the booby! that hadn’t sense enough to keep that quiet? Don’t you see he’s under orders from her? Ah, she knows what’s what, you may be sure. She sees all the ways of it, and just how to manage him. The like of you will not take the trouble to find out, but that sort of minx knows by nature. Oh, she has formed all her plans, you may be sure! She knows exactly how she is going to do it and baffle all of us; but I shall put a spoke in my lady’s wheel. My lady!” cried Lady Piercey, with the irritation of one who feels her own dearest rights menaced; “she is calculating already how soon she’ll get my name and make me the dowager! I know it as well as if I saw into her; but she is going a bit too fast, and you’ll see that I’ll put a spoke in her wheel! John! you can turn back now, and drive to the place I told you of. I want to ask about some poultry at that little inn. You know the name of it.”
“The Seven Thorns, my lady?” said John, turning round on the box, with his hand at his hat, and his face red with suppressed laughter, made terrible by fear of his mistress—as if he and the coachman had not been perfectly well aware, when the order was given, what kind of wildfowl was that pretended poultry which took Lady Piercey to the Seven Thorns!
“So it is; that was the name,” said the old lady. “You can take the first turning, and get there as quick as possible. You’ll just see how I shall settle her,” she added, nodding her head as soon as the man’s back was turned.
“Do you mean to see the girl, aunt?” cried Margaret, in surprise and alarm.
“What’s so wonderful in that? Of course I mean to see her. I shall let her know that I understand all her little plans, and mean to put a stop to them. She is not to have everything her own way.”