“I don’t know what subjects there can be but melancholic subjects in this ’ouse of mournin’,” Dunning said.
“Then I will come and see him myself,” said Patty. She went to Sir Giles’ room accordingly, after his too simple dinner had been swallowed, and devoted herself to him.
“I think we’ll send Dunning away for a little, dear papa,” she said. “We have things to talk of, haven’t we?—and Dunning has been on duty a long time, and a little society will make him more cheerful.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir Giles,” said Dunning, “but whatever some folks may think I don’t ’old with being cheerful, not on the day of a funeral.”
“What does he say, my dear? what does he say?” said Sir Giles. “But look you here, Dunning, whatever it is I won’t have Mrs. Piercey contradicted. Do you hear, sir? Do as Mrs. Piercey tells you,” and he struck his stick upon the floor.
Dunning in consternation withdrew, for when Sir Giles was roused he was not to be trifled with.
“She’s found out some d——d trick to come over the old man,” he said in the housekeeper’s room to which he retired. But this was a mistake; for it was Sir Giles himself who had invented the trick. He turned to Patty with great tenderness when the man disappeared, and took her by both hands and drew her to a chair beside him.
“My dear,” he said, “I’ve forgotten, like an old sinner, what Meg Osborne told me. I’ve been allowing you to do all sorts of things and wear yourself out. But it sha’n’t happen again, it sha’n’t happen again. Now that my poor dear boy is gone we must be more careful than ever—for it’s our last hope both for you and for me to have an heir for the old house.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
It was Sir Giles himself who had found this charm which had so great an effect on the after-history of Greyshott. Patty, among other qualities which were not so praiseworthy, had the almost fierce modesty of the young Englishwoman, and would not have spoken on such a subject to a man, even so harmless a person as an old man like Sir Giles, for any inducement. She did not even understand what he meant at first, and the same impulse of farouche modesty made her ashamed to explain, or do more than blush deeply and remonstrate, “Oh, dear papa!” as she would have done probably in any case, whether his supposition had been false or true. The old gentleman in his melancholy and confused musings over Gervase, had suddenly remembered, the thought being recalled by some merest trifle of association, the hurrahs of little Osy which had mingled with his own feeble cheer on some forgotten occasion. He remembered it suddenly as the strangest contrast to his feelings now. What had the old father, desolate and childless, to cheer about? What had he heard that could have produced that cheer? It was when Meg was going away—when she had told him she was going to take Osy away from him. That was nothing to cheer about. What was it that had made him forget Osy, but which the dear little fellow had caught up and shouted over, though it was an unkindness to himself? and then he recollected all at once. What Mrs. Osborne had said had been the most common and ordinary wish that children might arise in the old house, which was the most natural thing, the most certainly to be expected. She had meant no more: but Sir Giles had at once attributed to Meg a knowledge which was at the moment impossible, without reflecting either that she was the last person to receive the confidence of Patty. He forgot now that it was months since this had been said, and only remembered that it had been said, and that the prospect was like life from death. Life from death! That was what it would be—from his dead son an heir, in whom the old house might blossom and grow glad again. He took up the idea where he had dropped it with a sudden exhilaration which drove away all sorrow. An heir to the old house, a thing all made of hope, with none of poor Gervase’s deficiencies, a being whom the old man fondly hoped to “make a man of” even yet before he died.