“That is while you are in London; but they think of you all day long, and are always thinking of you. You will not do anything to grieve them, Gervase, while you are away?”
“How can I when I’m going to be looked after all the time, and somebody to meet me at the station?” cried Gervase, with his loud laugh.
Lady Piercey was very anxious afterwards to know what advice Margaret had given to her son. The “things” had all been looked over and packed; and it took Lady Piercey a long time to consider what money she could trust her son with when he went away. She had intended at first to send some one with him to pay his railway ticket, and to send what he would want in London to Dr. Gregson. But then, what if an accident happened? what if Gregson failed to meet him, or appropriated the money? which was a thing always on the cards with so poor a man, the old lady thought. It could not be that the heir of Greyshott, Sir Giles’ son, should leave his home penniless. She took out her cash-box, for she was the manager of everything, and had all the money interests of Greyshott in her hands—and took from it a five-pound note, over which she mused and pondered long, weighing it in her hand as if that were the way of judging. Then she put it back, and took out a ten-pound note. Ten pounds is a great deal of money. Much good as well as much harm can be done with ten pounds. It is such a large sum of money that, if you trust a man with that, you may trust him with more. She took out another—wavering, hesitating—now disposed to put it back, now laying it with the other, poising them both in her hands. Finally, with a quick sigh, she shut up the cash-box sharply and suddenly, and gave it to Parsons to be put back in the cabinet, where it usually dwelt; and folding up the notes, directed her niece to put them in an envelope. “Twenty pounds!” she said, with a gasp. Her two supporters had been present during all this process, and Parsons was exactly aware how much money was to be trusted in the pockets of the Softy, and thought it excessive. Lady Piercey sat by grimly, and looked on while the money was enclosed in the envelope, and then she turned briskly to her companion. “You had a long talk, Meg,” she said; “and I suppose you gave him a great deal of advice. You ought to know, you that had as husband an officer, for they are always in the heat of everything. What advice did you give to my boy?”
CHAPTER XV.
Colonel Piercey arrived next day in the afternoon, Gervase having gone away in a state of the most uproarious spirits in the morning. Margaret had been made to accompany him to the railway, to see that his ticket was taken properly, and that he got the right train, and was not too late so as to miss it, or too early so as to be lingering about the station; in which latter circumstance it seemed quite possible to his mother that “that girl” might become aware that her prey was slipping from her fingers, and appear upon the scene to recover him. She might save herself the trouble, Lady Piercey thought, for the boy’s brain was full of London, and a country lass was not likely to get much hold of him; but still, it’s best to be on the safe side. No suggestion of Patty’s real intentions had occurred to any one; not even in the Seven Thorns, where they suspected much less than at Greyshott. In the little inn it was supposed that the Softy had been, after all, too clever for her, and had got clean away; and in the Manor it was also believed that he had escaped from her vulgar attractions. He had got London in his blood, he was thinking of how to enjoy himself as much as he was capable of thinking of anything, and the Rev. Gregson would take care of that, his mother reflected with a grim smile. And to have him safely away, transferred to some one else’s responsibility, no longer for the moment a trouble to any one belonging to him, filled Greyshott in general, and his parents in particular, with a heavenly calm. The only one who was not perfectly at ease was Mrs. Osborne, who endeavoured in vain to make out what he meant by many of his broken expressions. Margaret was sure that Gervase meant something which was not suspected by his family: but she, too, believed that he had somehow cut himself adrift from Patty, and that whatever his meaning was, in that quarter he was safe; which showed that though she was very different from the rest of the household, her mind, even when awakened into some anxiety and alarm, had little more insight than theirs.
She was met upon the road by Osy and his nurse, and the little boy was delighted to be lifted into the carriage, an unusual privilege. His chatter was sweet to his mother’s ears. It delivered her for the moment from those anxieties which were not hers, which she was compelled to share without any right to them; without being permitted any real interest. Osy was her refuge, the safeguard of her individuality as a living woman with concerns and sentiments of her own. To put her arms round him, to hear the sound of his little babbling voice, was enough at first; and then she awoke with a start to the consciousness that Osy was saying something in which there was not only meaning, but a significance of a most alarming kind—“Movver, Movver!” the little boy had been saying, calling her attention, which was so satisfied with him, that it was scarcely open to what he said. He beat upon her knee with his little fist, then climbed up on the seat and seized her by the chin—a favourite mode he had of demanding to be listened to: “Movver! has Cousin Gervase don to be marrwed? Where has he don to be marrwed—tell me; tell me, Movver!”
Mrs. Osborne started with a sudden perception of what he meant at last. “Osy, you must not be so silly; Gervase has gone to London to see all the fine things—the shops, don’t you remember? and the theatres, and the beautiful horses, and the beautiful ladies in the park.”
“Yes, I wemember; there was one beau’ful lady with an organ, that singed in the street. But you said I couldn’t marrwey her, I was too little. Will Cousin Gervase marrwey a lady like that?”
“Hush, child! he is not going to marry at all.”
“Oh yes, yes, Movver! for he telled me. He made me dive him my big silver penny that Uncle Giles dave me, and he said, ‘I’m doing to be marrwed, Osy.’ I dave it to him for a wedding present, like you dave Miss Dohnson your silver bells.”