Margaret Oliphant - The Cuckoo in the Nest. Volume 2/2

“Where’s father? ain’t he coming to dinner?” said Gervase, breaking into this speech, which the audience for which it was intended had already heard, noted, and inwardly digested.

“No, Mr. Gervase. Mr. Dunning things as Sir Giles ’as ’ad enough excitement for to-day.”

“Well,” said Patty, “I don’t think much of Dunning after his neglect, but he’s right in that. I should have said so myself had it been referred to me. Early to bed and kept quite quiet – that is the only thing for your poor dear papa. Are we waiting for any one?” she said, looking round with majesty. J’ai failli attendre . Patty had never heard these words, but they were written on her face.

There was silence in the hall. Colonel Piercey had turned round from the engraving which he had been examining with quite unnecessary minuteness; but as he did not know either of the strange couple who by a sudden transformation had become his hosts, it was not possible that he could give any explanations; and the butler, who had not the training of a master of the ceremonies, and who had begun to shake in his shoes before that personage who, in her day, had drawn beer for him at the Seven Thorns – who had dismissed the great Parsons, and accused the greater Dunning of neglect – remained dumb, shifting from one foot to another, looking helplessly in front of him. He ventured at last to say, with trepidation, that “Mrs. Osborne, if you please, is just coming downstairs.”

“Oh, Mrs. Osborne!” said Patty, and swept into the room. She stood looking for a moment at the expanse of the table laid with five places – one of them unnecessary. “I suppose I had better take my own proper place at once without ceremony,” she said, with an airy gesture, half to Colonel Piercey, half to the butler. “And, Gervase, as your father isn’t here, you had better sit in his place. We must make another arrangement when Sir Giles is able to come to table. Oh, Margaret Osborne! Is that where she sits? And here she is! I don’t say anything, for we are a little unpunctual ourselves to-night. But I must warn you all that I am generally exact to the minute, and I never wait for anybody,” Patty said.

It may easily be supposed that there was not much conversation at the table thus surrounded. Colonel Piercey and Margaret Osborne sat opposite to each other, but concealed from each other by the huge bouquet of flowers which occupied the central place; and neither of them, in the shock and strangeness of the occasion, found a word to say. They were both paralysed, so to speak, by the unimaginable circumstances in which they found themselves, overwhelmed with an amazement which grew as the meal went on. Gervase, in his father’s seat, ate voraciously, and laughed a good deal, but said little. Patty was mistress of the occasion. One glance of keen observation had shown her that Mrs. Osborne’s dress was not even open at the throat; it was not covered with crape. It was the simplest of black gowns, with no special sign of “deep” mourning, such as on the evening of a funeral ought to have been indispensable. If Patty had ever entertained any doubt of herself it now vanished. It was she who was fulfilling all the duties necessary. The others were but outsiders. She had secured triumphantly her proper seat and sphere.

“It is unfortunate for us, Gervase,” she said, “to come home on such a sad day; and to think we knew nothing of all the dreadful things that were going on till we learned it all with a shock when we arrived! It is true, we were moving about on our wedding-tour; but still, if the house hadn’t been filled with those as – that – didn’t wish us well, we might have been called back; and you, dear, might have had the mournful satisfaction – ”

“You always said, Patty,” said Gervase, “that you would stay a week away.”

“And to think of my poor dear mother-in-law looking for us, holding out her poor arms to us – and us knowing nothing,” said Patty, drying her eyes – “as if there were no telegraphs nor railways! Which makes it very sad for us to come home now; but I hope your dear father, Gervase, if he’s rightly watched and done for, won’t be any the worse. Oh, I hope not! it would be too sad. That Dunning, who has been thought so much of, does not seem to me at all fit for his place. To think of him to-day, such an agitating day, with nothing to give his master! I shall take the liberty of superintending Mr. Dunning in future,” Patty said.

Gerald Piercey and Margaret Osborne ate what was set before them humbly, without raising their eyes. They were ridiculously silenced and reduced to subjection; even if they could have encouraged each other with a glance it would have been something, but they had not even that alleviation. What to say! They were ignored as completely as if they had been two naughty children. Gervase, more naughty still, but in favour, took advantage by behaving himself as badly as possible. He made signs to the butler to pour him out wine with a liberal hand, and gobbled his food in great mouthfuls. “I say, Meg,” he whispered, putting his hand before his mouth, “don’t tell! she can’t see me!” while his wife’s monologue ran on; and then he interrupted it with one of those boisterous laughs by which the Softy was known.

“What is it?” Patty cried sharply from the head of the table.

“Meg knows – Meg and me knows,” cried Gervase from the other end.

“I must request,” said Patty, “Margaret Osborne, that you will not make my husband forget, with your jokes, what day it is. You mayn’t think it, perhaps, for my poor dear mother-in-law was not very kind to me – but I feel it to be a very solemn day. And you may be very witty and very clever, though you don’t show it to me – but I won’t have laughing and nonsense at my table on poor dear Lady Piercey’s funeral day.”

What was Margaret to do? She could not defend herself from so grotesque an accusation. She looked up with some quick words on her lips, but did not say them. It was intolerable, but it was at the same time ludicrous; a ridiculous jest, and yet the most horribly, absurdly serious catastrophe in the world.

“The laughing seems all on your husband’s side,” said Colonel Piercey, unable to refrain.

“Oh!” said Patty, fixing upon him a broad stare: and then she, too, permitted herself a little laugh. “It’s the strangest thing,” she said, “and I can’t help seeing it’s ridiculous – though laughing is not in my mind, however it may be in other people’s, on such a day – here’s a gentleman sitting at my table, and everybody knows him but me.”

“I don’t know him,” cried Gervase, “not from Adam; unless it’s Gerald Piercey, the soldier fellow that mother was so full of before I went off to get married: though nobody knew I was going to get married,” he said, with a chuckle, “except little Osy, that gave me – I say, where’s little Osy, Meg?”

“I hope,” said Patty severely, “that children are not in the habit of being brought down here after dinner as they are in some places. It’s such bad style, and, I’m thankful to say, it’s going out of fashion. It’s a thing as I could not put up with here.”

“Send some one upstairs,” said Margaret, in a low voice to the footman who was standing by her, “to say that Master Osy is not to come down.”

“What are you saying to the servant? I don’t want to be disagreeable,” said Patty, “but I object to a servant being sent away from his business. Oh, if the child comes usually, let him come, but it must be for the last time.”

“If I may go myself,” said Margaret, half rising, “that will be the most expeditious way.”

“Not before you have finished your dinner,” cried Patty; “oh, don’t, pray. I should be quite distressed if you didn’t have your dinner. And you had no tea. I know some ladies have trays sent upstairs. But I can’t tolerate such a habit as having trays upstairs: so for goodness’ sake, Margaret Osborne, sit still and finish your dinner here.”