“Come,” said Sir Giles, “you amuse yourselves pretty well out there. Don’t give yourself airs, Gerald.”
“Oh, yes; we amuse ourselves more or less,” he said, with a pleasant laugh. “Enough to make us envy a young swell like Gervase, who, I suppose, has all the world at his feet and nothing to do.”
There was a strange pause in the room; a sort of furtive look between the ladies; a sound—he could not tell what—from Sir Giles. Colonel Piercey had a faint comprehension that he had, as he said to himself, put his foot in it. What had he said that was not the right thing to say? He caught Margaret’s eye, and there was a warning in it, a sort of appeal; but he had not an idea what its meaning was.
“I am sure,” said Lady Piercey, with a voice out of which she vainly endeavoured to keep the little break and whimper which was habitual to her when she was moved, “my boy might have all the world at his feet—if he was that kind, Gerald. But he’s not that kind; he’s of a different sort. He takes things in a—— in a kind of philosophical way.”
“Humph!” said Sir Giles, pushing back his chair. “Meg, Gerald will not mind if I have my backgammon. I’m an old fogey, you see, my boy, with long days to get through, and not able to get out. I’m past amusement. I only kill the time as well as I can now.”
“I’m very fond of a game of backgammon, too, Uncle Giles.”
“Are you, boy? why, that’s something like. Meg, I’ll give you a holiday. Ladies are very nice, but they never know the rules of a game,” the ungrateful old gentleman said.
CHAPTER XVI.
That evening in the library at Greyshott was the most cheerful that had been known for a long time; Colonel Piercey made himself thoroughly at home. He behaved to the old people as if they had been the most genial friends of his youth. He told them stories of India and his experiences there. He played backgammon with Sir Giles, and let him win the game as cleverly as Dunning did, and with more grace. He admired Lady Piercey’s work and suggested a change in the shading, at which both she and Parsons exclaimed with delight that it would make all the difference! He was delightful to everybody except Margaret, of whom he took very little notice, which was a strange thing in so apparently chivalrous and kind a man, seeing in what a subject condition she was kept, how much required of her, and so little accorded to her, in the strange family party of which the two servants formed an almost unfailing part. Margaret felt herself left out in the cold with a completeness which surprised her, much as she was accustomed to the feeling that she was of no account. She had no desire that Gerald Piercey should pity her; but it was curious to see how he ignored her, never turning even a look her way, addressing her only when necessity required. It has always been a theory of mine that there exists between persons of opposite sexes who are no longer to be classed within the lines of youth, middle-aged people, or inclining that way, a repulsion instead of an attraction. A young man tolerates a girl even when she does not please him, because she is a woman; but a man of forty or so dislikes his contemporary on this account; is impatient of her; feels her society a burden, almost an affront to him. He calls her old, and he calls himself young; perhaps that has something to do with it. Colonel Piercey was not shabby enough to entertain consciously any such feeling; but he shared it unconsciously with many other men. He thought the less of her for accepting that position, for submitting to be the souffre-douleur of the household. He suspected her, instinctively, of having designs of—he knew not what kind,—of being underhand, of plotting her own advantage somehow, to the harm of the two old tyrants who exacted so much from her. Would she continue to hold such a place, to expose herself to so much harsh treatment, if it were not for some end of her own? It was true that he could not make out what that end would be; that there should be any possibility of the child (who was delightful) supplanting or succeeding Gervase, was not an idea that ever entered his mind. Gervase was a young man of whom he knew nothing, whom he supposed to be like other young men. And, after Gervase came the old General, Gerald Piercey’s father, and himself. There was no possibility of any intruder in that place. He supposed that it was their money she must be after—to get them to leave all they could to her. Meg Piercey! the girl whom he could not help remembering still, who was not in the least like this pale person: to think that years and poverty should have brought that bright creature to this!
“I almost wonder, Gerald,” said Lady Piercey, as she sat among her silks with an air of ease diffused over all the surroundings, working a little by turns and pausing to watch benignantly the process of the backgammon,—“I almost wonder that you did not meet my boy at the station. His train would come in just before yours left, and I have been thinking since then that you might have met. He was to meet an old friend, an excellent old clergyman, with whom he was to spend a few days. Though he is full of spirit, my Gervase is very fond of all his old friends.”