LITMIR.BIZ

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“Meg! do you know I’m ready to go out?” cried Lady Piercey, in the tone of that king who had once almost been made to wait. “May I bring Osy, aunt?” cried Margaret. “No,” was the peremptory answer. “I’ll go without you if you don’t be quick.”

      “And I don’t want to go, mover,” said Osy. “I’m doing to play with Uncle Giles.”

      “Come along, little duffer,” cried Gervase; “I’ll give you another ride when we’ve done playing.”

      “Meg, come this moment!” cried Lady Piercey; and Margaret, with agonised visions, was compelled to go. Bitter is the bread of those who have to run up and down another man’s stairs, and be as the dogs under his table. “Oh!” Margaret Osborne said to herself, “if I had but the smallest cottage of my own! If I could but take in needlework or clear starching, and work for my boy!” Perhaps the time might come when that prayer should be fulfilled, and when it would not seem so sweet as she thought.

      Lady Piercey took her usual drive in a long round through the familiar roads which she had traversed almost every day for the last thirty years. She knew not only every village, but every cottage in every village, and every tree, and every clump of wild honeysuckle or clematis flaunting high upon the tops of the hedges. By dint of long use, she had come to make that frequent, almost daily, progress without seeing anything, refreshed, it is to be supposed, by the sweep of the wide atmosphere and all the little breezes that woke and breathed about her as she went over long miles and miles of green country, all monotonously familiar and awakening no sensation in her accustomed breast. She thought of her own affairs as she made these daily rounds, which many a poorer woman envied the old lady, thinking how pleasant it would be to change with her, and see the world from the luxurious point of vantage of a landau with a pair of good horses, and a fat coachman and agile footman on the box. But Lady Piercey thought of none of these advantages, nor of the beautiful country, nor the good air, but only of her own cares, which filled up all the foreground of her life, as they do with most of us. After a while, being forced by the concatenation of circumstances, she began to discuss these cares with Margaret, which was her custom when Parsons, who knew them all as well as her ladyship, was out of the way. Mrs. Osborne was made fully aware that it was because there was no one else near, that she was made the confidant of her aunt’s troubles; but she listened, nevertheless, very dutifully, though to-day with a somewhat distracted mind, thinking of her child, and seeing an awful vision before her of Osy tossed from Gervase’s shoulder and lying stunned on the ground, with nobody but Dunning and Sir Giles to look after him. This made her perhaps less attentive than usual to all Lady Piercey’s theories as to what would be the making of Gervase, and save him from all difficulties and dangers. The old lady was not deceived in respect to her son; she was very clear-sighted, although in a moment of excitement, as on that morning, she might be ready to credit him with ideal virtues; on ordinary occasions nothing could be more clear than her estimate, or more gloomy than her forecast, of what his future might be.

      “I am resolved on one thing,” said Lady Piercey, “that we must marry him by hook or crook. I hate the French: they’re a set of fools, good for nothing but dancing and singing and making a row in the world; but I approve their way in marrying. They would just look out a suitable person, money enough, and all that, and he’d have to marry her whether he liked it or not. Are you listening, Meg? If your uncle had done that with you, now, what a much better thing for you than pleasing your fancy as you did and grieving your heart!”

      “I’m not worth discussing, aunt, and all that’s over and gone long ago.”

      “That’s true enough; but you’re an example, and if I think proper, I’ll use it. I dare say Captain Osborne thought you had a nice bit of money when he first began to think of you, and was a disappointed man when he knew——”

      “Aunt, I cannot have my affairs discussed.”

      “You shall have just what I please and nothing else,” said the grim old lady. “I have had enough of trouble about you to have a right to say what I please. And so I shall do, whatever you may say. A deal better it would have been for you if we had just married you, as I always wished, to a sensible man with a decent income, who never would have left you to come back upon your family, as you have had to do. That’s a heavy price to pay, my dear, for the cut of a man’s moustache. And I’d just like to manage the same for my own boy, who is naturally much more to me than you. But then there’s the girl to take into account; girls are so much indulged nowadays, they take all kinds of whimseys into their heads. Now I should say, from my point of view, that Gervase would make an excellent husband; if she was sensible, and knew how to manage, she might turn him round her little finger. What do you say? Oh, I know you are never likely to think of anything to the advantage of my boy.”

      “I think my cousin Gervase has a great many good qualities, aunt; whether you would be doing right in making him marry, is another matter.”

      “Oh, you think so! it would be better to leave him unmarried, and then when we die Osy would have the chance? For all so clever as you are, Meg, I can see through you there. But Osy has no chance, as you ought to know. There’s the General, and his son, Gerald—a new name in the family, as if the Gileses and the Gervases were not good enough for a younger branch! If it was Osy, bless the child, I don’t know that I should mind so much,” the old lady said in a softened tone, with a tear suddenly starting in the corner of her eye.

      “Thank you for thinking that,” said Margaret, subdued. “I know very well it could never be Osy.”

      “But there might be another Osy,” said Lady Piercey, putting away that tear with a surreptitious finger. “There never was a brighter man than your uncle, and I’m no fool; and yet you see Gervase—— What’s to hinder Gervase from having a boy like his father if the mother of it was good for anything? A girl, if she had any sense, might see that. What’s one person in a family? The family goes on and swamps the individual. You may be surprised at me using such words; but I’ve thought a deal about it—a great deal about it, Meg. A good girl of a good race, that is what he wants; and, goodness gracious, if she only knew how to set about it, what an easy time she might have!”

      To this, Margaret, being probably of another opinion, made no reply; and Lady Piercey, after an expectant and indignant pause, burst forth—“You don’t think so, I suppose? You think the only thing he’s likely to get, or that is fit for him, is this minx at the Seven Thorns?”

      “I never thought so,” cried Margaret, “nor believed in that at all—never for a moment.”

      “That shows how much you know,” said the old lady, with a snort of anger. “I believe in it, if you don’t. Who is he staying at home to-day and trying to please, the booby! that hadn’t sense enough to keep that quiet? Don’t you see he’s under orders from her? Ah, she knows what’s what, you may be sure. She sees all the ways of it, and just how to manage him. The like of you will not take the trouble to find out, but that sort of minx knows by nature. Oh, she has formed all her plans, you may be sure! She knows exactly how she is going to do it and baffle all of us; but I shall put a spoke in my lady’s wheel. My lady!” cried Lady Piercey, with the irritation of one who feels her own dearest rights menaced; “she is calculating already how soon she’ll get my name and make me the dowager! I know it as well as if I saw into her; but she is going a bit too fast, and you’ll see that I’ll put a spoke in her wheel! John! you can turn back now, and drive to the place I told you of. I want to ask about some poultry at that little inn. You know the name of it.”

      “The Seven Thorns, my lady?” said John, turning round on the box, with his hand at his hat, and his face red with suppressed laughter, made terrible by fear of his mistress—as if he and the coachman had not been perfectly well aware, when the order was given, what kind of wildfowl was that pretended poultry which took Lady Piercey to the Seven Thorns!

      “So it is; that was the name,” said the old lady. “You can take the first turning, and get there as quick as possible. You’ll just see how I shall settle her,” she added, nodding her head as soon as the man’s back was turned.

      “Do you mean to see the girl, aunt?” cried Margaret, in surprise and

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