Part 2 (2/2)
”Has no one else a remark to make?” continued this terrible girl, collapsing suddenly into English, and looking inquiringly round the table. ”Perhaps there is some other language which you would prefer to French. It is all the same to me. We ought to strive to become proficient in foreign tongues. At the school where I was at Brighton there was a little girl in the fourth form who could write, and even speak, Greek with admirable fluency. It impressed me very much, for I myself knew so little of the language. And she was only six--”
”Six!” The boys straightened themselves at that, roused into eager protest. ”Six years old! And spoke Greek! And wrote Greek!
Impossible!”
”I have heard her talking for half an hour at a time. I have known the girls in the first form ask her to help them with their exercises. She knew more than anyone in the school.”
”Then she is a human prodigy. She ought to be exhibited. Six years old! Oh, I say--that child ought to turn out something great when she grows up. What did you say her name was, by the bye?”
Peggy lowered her eyelids, and pursed up her lips. ”Andromeda Michaelides,” she said slowly. ”She was six last Christmas. Her father is Greek Consul in Manchester.”
There was a pause of stunned surprise; and then, suddenly, an extraordinary thing happened. Mariquita bounded from her seat, and began flying wildly round and round the table. Her pigtail flew out behind her; her arms waved like the sails of a windmill, and as she raced along she seized upon every loose article which she could reach, and tossed it upon the floor. Cus.h.i.+ons from chairs and sofa went flying into the window; books were knocked off the table with one rapid sweep of the hand; magazines went tossing up in the air, and were kicked about like so many footb.a.l.l.s. Round and round she went, faster and faster, while the five beholders gasped and stared, with visions of madhouses, strait-jackets, and padded rooms, rus.h.i.+ng through their bewildered brains. Her pale cheeks glowed with colour; her eyes shone; she gave a wild shriek of laughter, and threw herself, panting, into a chair by the fireside.
”Three cheers for Mariquita! Ho! ho! he! Didn't I do it well? If you could have _seen_ your faces!”
”P-P-P-eggy! Do you mean to say you have been pretending all this time?
What do you mean? Have you been putting on all those airs and graces for a joke?” asked Esther severely; and Peggy gave a feeble splutter of laughter.
”W-wanted to see what you were like! Oh, my heart! Ho! ho! ho! wasn't it lovely? Can't keep it up any longer! Good-bye, Mariquita! I'm Peggy now, my dears.--Give me some more tea!”
CHAPTER FIVE.
EXPLANATIONS.
In the explanations that followed, no one showed a livelier interest than Peggy herself. She was in her element answering the questions which were showered upon her, and took an artistic pleasure in the success of her plot.
”You see,” she explained, ”I knew you would all be talking about me, and wondering what I was like, just as I was thinking about you. As I was Arthur's sister, I knew you would be sure to imagine me a mischievous tom-boy, so I came to the conclusion that the best way to shock you would be to be quite too awfully proper and well-behaved. I never enjoyed anything so much in my life as that first tea-time, when you all looked dumb with astonishment. I had made up my mind to go on for a week, but mother is coming to-morrow, and I couldn't keep it up before her, so I was obliged to explode to-night. Besides, I'm really quite fatigued with being good--”
”And are you--are you--really not proper, after all?” gasped Mellicent blankly; whereat Peggy clasped her hands in emphatic protest.
”Proper! Oh, my dear, I am the most awful person. I am always getting into trouble. You know what Arthur was? Well, I tell you truly, he is nothing to me. It's an extraordinary thing. I have excellent intentions, but I seem bound to get into sc.r.a.pes. There was a teacher at Brighton, Miss Baker,--a dear old thing. I called her 'Buns.'--She vowed and declared that I shortened her life by bringing on palpitation of the heart. I set the dressing-table on fire by spilling matches and crunching them beneath my heels. It was not a proper dressing-table, you know--just a wooden thing frilled round with muslin. We had two blazes in the last term. And a dreadful thing occurred! Would you believe that I was actually careless enough to sit down on the top of her best Sunday hat, and squash it as flat as a pancake!”
Despite her protestations of remorse, Peggy's voice had an exultant ring as she detailed the history of her escapades, and Esther shrewdly suspected that she was by no means so penitent as she declared. She put on her most severe expression, and said sternly--
”You must be dreadfully careless. It is to be hoped you will be more careful here, for your room is far-away from ours, and you might be burned to death before anyone discovered you. Mother never allows anyone to read in bed in this house, and she is most particular about matches. You wouldn't like to be burned to a cinder all by yourself some fine night, I should say?”
”No, I shouldn't--or on a wet one either. It would be so lonely,” said Peggy calmly. ”No; I am a reformed character about matches. I support home industries, and go in for safeties, which 'strike only on the box.'
But the boys would rescue me.” She turned with a smile, and beamed upon the three tall lads. ”Wouldn't you, boys? If you hear me squealing any night, don't stop to think. Just catch up your ewers of water, and rush to my bedroom. We might get up an amateur fire-brigade, to be in readiness. You three would be the brigade, and I would be the captain and train you. It would be capital fun. At any moment I could give the signal, and then, whatever you were doing--playing,--working,-- eating,--or on cold frosty nights, just when you were going to bed, off you would have to rush, and get out your fire-buckets. Sometimes you might have to break the ice, but there's nothing like being prepared.
We might have the first rehearsal to-night--”
”It's rather funny to hear you talking of being captain over the boys, because the day we heard that you were coming, they all said that if they were to be bothered with a third girl in the house, you would have to make yourself useful, and that you should be their f.a.g. Max said so, and so did Oswald, and then Robert said they shouldn't have you. He had lots of little odd things he wanted done, and he could make you very useful. He said the other boys shouldn't have you; you were his property.”
”Tut, tut!” said Peggy pleasantly. She looked at the three scowling, embarra.s.sed faces, and the mocking light danced back into her eyes. ”So they were all anxious to have me, were they? How nice! I'm gratified to hear it. Is there any little thing I can do for your honourable self now, Mr Darcy, before I dress for dinner?”
Robert looked across the room at Mellicent with an expression which made that young person tremble in her shoes.
”All right, young lady, I'll remember you!” he said quietly. ”I've warned you before about repeating conversations. Now you'll see what happens. I'll cure you of that little habit, my dear, as sure as my name is Robert Darcy--”
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