“Oh, you are there, Meg Osborne: I wonder you didn’t go with your great friends, the first people in the county, as you all think, insulting me in my own house! Ah, and I’ll teach you all it’s my own house! I won’t have nobody here turning their backs to me, or going out and in of my place without as much as a thank you! You’re studying my pictures, Colonel Piercey, are you? They’re my pictures, they’re not yours; and I’ll have you to know that nobody sha’n’t even look at them without my consent.”
Colonel Piercey turned round, almost angry with himself for the fury he felt. “I beg your pardon,” he said, very gravely, yet with a sort of smile.
“Oh, you beg my pardon! and you laugh as if it were a joke! I can tell you it’s no joke. They’re all mine, willed by him as knew best who he wanted them to go to; and I’ll keep them, that I will, against all the beggarly kinsfolk in the world; coming here a-looking as soon as the old man’s in his grave for what they can devour!”
“Are you ready, Margaret?” Colonel Piercey said.
“Don’t you turn it off to her, sir: speak to me! It’s me that has to be considered first. You are going off mighty high: no civility to the head of the house, though I’ve taken you in and given you lodging in my house, at least Meg there, near a week? Oh, you laugh again, do you? And who is the head of the house if it’s not me? I’m Mrs. Piercey of Greyshott. The pictures are mine, and the name’s mine, as well as everything else; and you are nothing but the son of the younger brother, and not got as much to do with it as Pownceby there, the lawyer.”
“My dear Mrs. Piercey,” said Mr. Pownceby, “however much you may despise Pownceby the lawyer, he knows a little more on that subject than you do: a lady is rarely, if ever, the head of a house, and certainly never one who belongs to the family only by marriage. One word, if you please: Colonel Piercey’s father, now Sir Francis Piercey, is the undoubted head of the house.”
“Oh, you’ll say anything, of course, to back them up; you think they’re your only friends and will pay you best. But you’ll find that’s a mistake, Mr. Pownceby the lawyer, just as they’ll find it’s a mistake. What do you want here, Dunning? What business has servants, except my footman to open the door, here? You’ve been a deal too much petted in your time, and you’ll find out the difference now.”
“Mr. Pownceby, sir,” said Dunning, who had suddenly appeared on the scene, exceedingly dark and lowering, “Is it true, sir, what I hear, that none of us old servants, not me, sir, that looked after him night and day, is named in my old master’s will?”
“I am sorry to say it is quite true, Dunning,” Mr. Pownceby said; “but I don’t doubt that Mrs. Piercey will remember your long service, as Sir Giles wished her to do.”
“How do you know what Sir Giles wished? I know best what Sir Giles said I was to do,” cried Patty. “As for long service, yes, if holding on like grim death and taking as little trouble as possible is what you mean.”