Patty, however, was by no means delighted with Margaret’s prompt withdrawal. She felt herself forestalled, which was painful, and the power of the initiative taken from her. She had intended to play for a little, as the cat plays with the mouse, with this fine lady, who had once been so far above Patty Hewitt, and to whom, in her schoolgirl days, she had been expected to curtsey as to the Queen. Patty’s heart had swelled with the thought of bringing down pride (a moral process, as everybody knows), and teaching the woman who had no money, and therefore no right to set herself up above others, her proper place; and it vexed her that this fine rôle should be taken from her.
“Oh, you are going, are you?” she said. “I hope it isn’t on my account. When I married Gervase I knew all that there was to put up with, and more than has turned out. I knew I shouldn’t have my house to myself, like most new married ladies, and I had made up my mind to all that. I wouldn’t have turned you out, not for the world—however you might have been in my way.”
“I am afraid I have a strong objection,” said Margaret, “to be in anybody’s way.”
“Ah, that’s your pride,” said Patty, “which I must say I wonder at in a person of your age, and that knows she has nothing to keep it up on. You’ve got a pension, haven’t you, that’s enough to live on? It’s a fine thing having money out of all our pockets to spend as you please; but I never heard that a pension was much to trust to, and if you were to marry again you would lose it all. And your boy to bring up, too. My father-in-law has a tremendous idea of your boy. I think it’s good for him, in one way, that you are taking him away; for it’s ridiculous to bring up a poor child like that, who hasn’t a penny, to think that he’s as good as the heir, and treated by everybody as if he was really a gentleman’s son, you know, with a good fortune at his back.”
Margaret smothered with difficulty the indignation that rose to her lips, but she said quietly, “You must disabuse your mind of any such idea. Osy never could be my uncle’s heir. The heir of Greyshott after Gervase—and, of course, Gervase’s children—is not Osy, but Gerald Piercey, our cousin who has just gone away.”
Though this was precious information to Patty, she received it with a toss of her head.
“I hope,” she said, “I know a little about the family I’ve married into; but I can tell you something more, and that is, that it’ll never be your fine Colonel’s, for all so grand as he thinks himself; for it’s all in father-in-law’s power, and rather than let him have it he’ll leave it all away. I wouldn’t see a penny go to that man that gives himself such airs, not if I were to make the will myself to take it away.”
“I hope,” said Margaret, with an effort, “that there will be natural heirs, and that there need be no question on that point.”
“Oh, you will stand up for him, of course!” cried Patty; “but I’d like you to know, if you’re making up the match on that score, that it’ll never come to pass. Me and Gervase is both against him, and father-in-law won’t go against us both, not when he gets used to me. I’d rather see it all go to an ’ospital than to that man. I can’t bear that man, looking down upon those that are better than himself, as if he was on stilts!” Patty grew red and hot in her indignation. Then she shook out her dress airily, as if shaking away the subject and the objectionable person. “Oh yes,” she said, “natural heirs!” with a conscious giggle. “It’s you that has gone and put that in father-in-law’s old head. But I told him it was early days. Dear old man. It’s a pity he is silly. I don’t think he ever can have been much in his head, any more than——. Do you?”
“My uncle is in very bad health. He is ill, and his nerves are much affected. But he has always been a man quite—quite able to manage his own affairs. A man,” cried Margaret, faltering a little with indignation and distress, “of very good sense and energy, not at all like—not at all——”