“Only the sight of that old cabinet which I remember so well,” cried the soldier, with a curious tone in his voice. “It used to be one of our favourite puzzles to find out the secret drawers. When Mrs. Osborne was Miss Piercey,” he continued, to give him an excuse for looking towards her again. Margaret had bent her head over her work. Was that what it meant? he asked himself. Was this designing woman in the secret? Was this her plan to harm her cousin, and get him into trouble with his parents? His face grew stern as he looked at her. He thought there was guilt in every line of her attitude. She could not face him, or give any account of the meaning in her eyes.
“Ay, it’s a queer old thing,” said Sir Giles; “many a one has tried his wits at it, and had to give up. It’s very different from your modern things.”
“You should see my Gervase at it,” said Lady Piercey. “He pulls out one drawer after another, as if he had made it all. I never could fathom it for my part, though I have sat opposite to it in this chair for five-and-thirty years. But Gervase has it all at his fingers’ ends.”
“Pooh! he’s known it all his life,” said Sir Giles. “Gerald, my fine fellow, we’ve just time for another before I go to bed.”
“Surely, Uncle,” said Gerald; but it seemed to him that he had become all at once conscious of another game that was being played; a tragic game, with hearts and lives instead of bits of ivory—a hapless young fellow in the hands of two women, one of whom he had been made to believe he loved, in order to carry out the schemes of the other who was planning and scheming behind backs to deprive him of his natural rights. Imagination made a great leap to attain to such a fully developed theory, but it did so with a spring. Colonel Piercey thought that the presence of this woman, pale, self-restrained, bearing every humiliation, was accounted for now.
“Why did Gerald Piercey look at you so, Meg?” asked Lady Piercey. She had said she felt tired, and risen and said good night earlier than usual, seizing her niece’s arm, not waiting till Parsons should come at her ordinary hour. She was fatigued with all the strain about Gervase; getting him off at the right hour, and getting all his “things” in order; and making out that new wonderful character for him to dazzle the visitor. She had a right indeed to be tired, having gone through so much that was exciting, and succeeded in everything, especially the last of her efforts. “Why did he look at you and talk that nonsense about the old cabinet? Something had come into his head.”
“I supposed he thought, Aunt, of the time when we used to make fun over it, and ask all the visitors to find it out.”
“Perhaps he did,” said the old lady; “but though he looked at you that once, you needn’t expect that he’s going to pay attention to you, Meg. He thinks you’re dreadfully gone off. I saw that as soon as he came into the room. You can see it in a moment from the way a man turns his head.”
“I don’t doubt that he is quite right,” said Margaret, with a little spirit.
“Oh, yes; he’s right enough. You’re a very different girl from what you used to be,” said Lady Piercey. “But you don’t like to hear it, Meg; for you don’t give me half the support you generally do. I don’t feel your arm at all. It is as if I had nothing to lean on. I wish Parsons was here.”