Parsons stopped and listened at the other end of the room, and Margaret paused in her work too, and raised her eyes. Lady Piercey’s countenance was in a flush of pleasure; she went on drumming on her knee in excitement, swaying a little back and forward in her chair.
“It is the very thing,” she said. “He’ll get his freedom, and yet he’ll be well looked after. You remember Dr. Gregson, him that was at that poor little dingy chapel when we were in town? Oh! you never remember anything, Meg! Parsons, you recollect Dr. Gregson, the clergyman with the family—that was so poor?”
“Yes, my lady,” said Parsons, coming a few steps nearer; her presence made legitimate, even during the discussion of these family matters, by this demand.
“Oh, you needn’t stop work; I am talking to my niece. When I want you I’ll call you,” said Lady Piercey, ruthless, waving her away. “Meg,” she said, after watching the woman’s reluctant withdrawal, “servants are a pretty set, poking their heads into everything; but you always stand up for them. Perhaps you think I’d better have up the cook, and let the whole of ’em know?”
“No; if you ask my opinion, Aunt, I think they are better left out.”
“Oh, you think they are better left out? Perhaps you think I’d better keep it all in my own mind, and not speak of my affairs at all? But it doesn’t matter much, and that’s a satisfaction, what you think,” said Lady Piercey, grimly. Then she resumed the argument. “I see my way; I see how we can do it all! Mr. Gregson is as poor as a church mouse, and he’ll do anything to get a little money. He shall meet Gervase at the station, and he shall look after him and show him life, as the poor boy says.” She laughed a low, reverberating laugh, that seemed to roll round the room; and then she added, giving Mrs. Osborne a push with her elbow, “You don’t seem to see the fun of it, Meg.”
“I don’t think Gervase will; nor, perhaps, the poor clergyman.”
The old lady laughed with deep enjoyment, putting one hand on her side. “Gregson will like anything that puts a little money in his pocket. And as for Gervase——” It was some utterance of deep contempt that was on Lady Piercey’s lips; but she remembered herself, and repressed it in time. During the rest of the morning she sat almost silent, with her mouth working, and, as if she were turning over an amusing thought, gave vent now and then to a chuckle of laughter. The idea of sending Gervase to see life under the auspices of the poor little Low Church incumbent of Drummond Chapel, Bloomsbury, was delightful. She felt her own cleverness in having thought of it almost as much as she felt the happy relief of being thus rid of her poor Softy without any harm—nay, with perfect safety to him. All the accessories were delightful—the astonishment of Dr. Gregson, the ludicrous disappointment of the weak young man, his probable seduction into tea-parties and Bible-classes, which would be much more wholesome for him than the other way of seeing life. It occurred to Lady Piercey, with a momentary check upon her triumph, that there had been little girls among the Gregsons who might have grown up into dangerous young persons by this time. But that gave her but a temporary alarm, for, to be sure, it would be easy enough to drop any entanglement of that kind, and a young Gregson might, in the most virtuous manner, supplant Patty, as well as the worst—and all would consequently work for good to the only person of any consequence, the only son and heir of Sir Giles Piercey, of Greyshott, for whom alone his mother was concerned.
When this brilliant idea was communicated to Sir Giles, he, too, smote his thigh and burst into such a roar of laughter, that notwithstanding her gratification in the success of this admirable practical joke of hers, Lady Piercey was afraid. He laughed till he was red, or rather crimson, with a tinge of blue in the face; his large, helpless frame heaving with the roar which resounded through the room. She was so frightened that she summoned Dunning hastily, though she had the moment before sent him away, and had entered her husband’s room alone, without any attendant on her own side, to consult him on this all-important subject. When Dunning returned, triumphant in the sense that they could not do without him, and tingling with curiosity, which he never doubted he should now have abundant means of satisfying, he found Sir Giles in a spasmodic condition in his chair, laughing by intervals, while Lady Piercey stood by his side, patting him upon the back with unaccustomed hands, and saying, “Now, my dear; now, now, my dear,” as she might have done to a restive horse. Sir Giles’ exuberance faded away at the sight of Dunning, who knew exactly what to do to make him, as they said, comfortable. And thus it happened that this old pair, who were older than the parents of Gervase had any need to be, and looked, both, much older than they were, from illness and self-indulgence, and all its attendant infirmities—were left to consult upon the fate of their only child with the servant making a third, which was very galling to Lady Piercey’s pride. Sir Giles did not pay any attention. Dunning was to him not a man, but a sort of accessory—a thing that did not count. He calmed down out of his paroxysms of laughter at Dunning’s appearance, but still kept bursting out at intervals. “What if the fellow”—and then he stopped to cough and laugh again—“what if he falls in love with Miss Brown or Miss Jones?” he said. “And then, my lady, you would be out of the frying-pan into the fire.”
“I am not afraid of Miss Smith or Miss Jones,” she cried, making a sign to him over Dunning’s head to be careful what he said. But Sir Giles was in the humour for speech, and cared nothing who was present.