“Me take little trouble!” cried Dunning, foaming. “I’ve not had a night’s rest, not an unbroken night, since Lady Piercey died—not one. Oh, I knowed how it would be! when she come about him, flattering him and slavering him, and the poor dear old gentleman thought it was good for Mr. Gervase; and then after, didn’t she put it upon him as she was in the family-way, and she never was in the family-way, no more than I was. Hoh! ask the women! Hoh! look at her where she stands! He thought as there was an heir coming, and there ain’t no more of an heir coming than——”
“Let us go, please, let us go,” cried Margaret, in distress. “Cousin Gerald, Mr. Pownceby, we have nothing, nothing surely, to do with this. Oh, let us get away.”
“Put that fellow out of my house!” cried Patty, “put him out of my house! You’re a nice gentleman, Gerald Piercey, to stand there and encourage a man like that to insult a lady. Robert, take that man by the shoulders and put him out.”
“He had just best try,” said Dunning, squaring his shoulders. But Robert, who was young and slim, knew better than to try. He stood sheepishly fumbling by the door, opening it for the party who were going out. Dunning was not an adversary to be lightly encountered. Colonel Piercey, however, not insensible to the appeal made to him, laid his hand on Dunning’s shoulder.
“This lady is right,” he said; “we must not insult a woman, Dunning. You had better come with us in the meantime. It will do you no good to stay here.”
“Ah, go with them and plot, do,” cried Patty; “I knew that’s how it would end. He knows I can expose him and all his ways—neglecting my dear old father-in-law; he knows he’ll never get another place if people hear what I’ve got to say of him! Oh, yes, go with ’em, do! They thought they were to have it all their own way, and turn me out. But all of you, every one, will just learn the difference. If he had behaved like a gentleman and her like a lady, I might have given them their old rubbish of pictures. I don’t care for that trash; they’re no ornament to the place. I intend to have them all taken down and carted off to the first auction there is anywhere. I don’t believe they’d bring above a few shillings; but all the same they are mine, and I’ll have no strangers meddling with them,” Patty cried. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Aunt Patience, hold your tongue, and let me manage my affairs myself.”
“The only thing is just this, ladies and gentlemen,” said Miss Hewitt. “She’s got put out, poor thing, and I don’t wonder, seeing all as she’s ’ad to do; but she don’t mean more than a bit of temper, and she’ll soon come round if you’ll have a little patience. This is the gentleman that come to me, and that I first told as my niece was married to Gervase Piercey, and no mistake. ’E is a very civil gentleman, Patty, and, Lord, why should you go and make enemies of ’im and of this lady, as I should say was a-going to be ’is good lady, and both belonging to the family! Nor I would not go and make an enemy of Mr. Pownceby, as ’as all the family papers in his ’ands and knows a deal, and could be of such use to you. I’d ask them all to stay, if I was you, to a nice bit of family dinner, and talk things over. What is the good of making enemies when being friends would be so much more use to you?” said Miss Hewitt, with triumphant logic. But Patty, who had heard with impatience and many attempts to interrupt, turned away before her oration was over, and, turning her back upon her recent guests, walked away as majestically as was possible, with her long train sweeping over the carpet, to the drawing-room, where she shut herself in, slamming the door. Miss Hewitt threw up her hands and eyes. “That’s just ’er,” she cried, “just ’er! Thinks of nothing when ’er temper’s up; but I ’ope you won’t think nothing of it neither. She’ll be as good friends in a hour as if nothing had ’appened; and I’ll go and give her a good talking to,” the aunt said.
When Miss Hewitt reached the drawing-room she found Patty thrown upon the sofa in the second stage of her passion, which was, naturally, tears. But these paroxysms did not last long. “I let you talk, Aunt Patience,” she said. “It pleased you, and it looked well enough. But I know my affairs better than you. Enemies! of course they’re all my enemies, and I don’t blame them. What I said I said on purpose, not in a temper. I had them here on purpose to see the old gentleman before he died, so that they might know for themselves that he was in his right mind, and all that; and old Pownceby knows; and I wanted to show them that I wasn’t afraid of them, not a bit. However, that’s all over, and you needn’t trouble your head about it. I have a deal to do before the trial——”
“The trial!” said Miss Hewitt, in consternation. “Is there going to be a trial?”
“Of course there will be a trial. They won’t let Greyshott go without a try for it, and you’ll see me in all the papers, and the whole story, and I don’t know that there’s anything to be ashamed of. The thing I’ve got to find out now is who to have for my lawyers. I want to have the best—the very best; and some one that will make it all into a story, and tell all I did for the poor old man. I was good to him,” said Patty, with an admiration of herself which was very genuine—“I was indeed. Many a time I’ve wanted to get a little pleasure like other folks—to enjoy myself a bit. Oh, there was one night! when Roger Pearson was here and had been at a dance, and I knew all the girls were at it, and all as jolly as——, and me cooped up, playing backgammon with the old gentleman, and—and worse beside.”