Part 3 (1/2)
”The Honourable Robert Darcy!” murmured a silvery voice from the other side of the fireplace. Robert turned his head sharply, but Peggy was gazing into the coals with an air of lamb-like innocence, and he subsided into himself with a grunt of displeasure.
The next day Mrs Saville came to lunch, and spent the afternoon at the vicarage. As Maxwell had said, she was a beautiful woman; tall, fair, and elegant, and looking a very fas.h.i.+onable lady when contrasted with Mrs Asplin in her well-worn serge, but her face was sad and anxious in expression. Esther noticed that her eyes filled with tears more than once as she looked round the table at the husband and wife and the three tall, well-grown children; and when the two ladies were alone in the drawing-room she broke into helpless sobbings.
”Oh, how happy you are! How I envy you! Husband, children,--all beside you. Oh, never, never let one of your girls marry a man who lives abroad. My heart is torn in two; I have no rest. I am always longing for the one who is not there. I must go back,--the major needs me; but my Peggy,--my own little girl! It is like death to leave her behind!”
Mrs Asplin put her arms round the tall figure, and rocked her gently to and fro.
”I know! I know!” she said brokenly. ”I _ache_ for you, dear; but I understand! I have parted with a child of my own--not for a few years, but for ever, till we meet again in G.o.d's heaven. I'll help you every way I can. I'll watch her night and day; I'll coddle her when she's ill; I'll try to make her a good woman. I'll _love_ her, dear, and she shall be my own special charge. I'll be a second mother to her.”
”You dear, good woman! G.o.d bless your kind heart!” said Mrs Saville brokenly. ”I can't help breaking down, but indeed I have much to be thankful for. I can't tell you what a relief it is to feel that she is in this house. The princ.i.p.als of that school at Brighton were all that is good and excellent, but they did not understand my Peggy.” The tears were still in her eyes, but she broke into a flickering smile at the last word. ”My children have such spirits! I am afraid they really do give more trouble than other boys and girls, but they are not really naughty. They are truthful and generous, and wonderfully warm-hearted.
I never needed to punish Peg when she was a little girl; it was enough to show that she had grieved me. She never did the same thing again after that; but--oh, dear me!--the ingenuity of that child in finding fresh fields for mischief! Dear Mrs Asplin, I am afraid she will try your patience. You must be sure to keep a list of all the breakages and accidents, and charge them to our account. Peggy is an expensive little person. You know what Arthur was.”
”Bless him--yes! I had hardly a tumbler left in the house,” said Mrs Asplin, with gusto. ”But I don't grieve myself about a few breakages.
I have had too much to do with schoolboys for that!--And now give me all the directions you can about this precious little maid, while we have the room to ourselves.”
For the next hour there the two ladies sat in conclave about Miss Peggy's mental, moral, and physical welfare. Mrs Asplin had a book in her hand, in which from time to time she jotted down notes of a curious and inconsequent character. ”Pay attention to private reading.
Gas-fire in her bedroom for chilly weather. See dentist in Christmas holidays. Query: gold plate over eye-tooth? Boots to order, Beavan and Company, Oxford Street. Cod-liver oil in winter. Careless about changing shoes. Damp brings on throat. Aconite and belladonna.” So on, and so on. There seemed no end to the warnings and instructions of this anxious mother; but when all was settled as far as possible, the ladies adjourned into the schoolroom to join the young people at their tea, so that Mrs Saville might be able to picture her daughter's surroundings when separated from her by those weary thousands of miles.
”What a bright, cheery room!” she said smilingly, as she took her seat at the table, and her eyes wandered round as if striving to print the scene in her memory. How many times, as she lay panting beneath the swing of the punkah, she would recall that cool English room, with its vista of garden through the windows, the long table in the centre, the little figure with the pale face and plaited hair, seated midway between the top and bottom! Oh! the moments of longing--of wild, unbearable longing--when she would feel that she must break loose from her prison-house and fly away,--that not the length of the earth itself could keep her back, that she would be willing to give up life itself just to hold Peggy in her arms for five minutes, to kiss the sweet lips, to meet the glance of the loving eyes--
But this would never do! Had she not vowed to be cheerful? The young folks were looking at her with troubled glances. She roused herself, and said briskly--
”I see you make this a playroom as well as a study. Somebody has been wood-carving over there, and you have one of those dwarf billiard-tables. I want to give a present to this room--something that will be a pleasure and occupation to you all; but I can't make up my mind what would be best. Can you give me a few suggestions? Is there anything that you need, or that you have fancied you might like?”
”It's very kind of you,” said Esther warmly; and echoes of ”Very kind!”
came from every side of the table, while boys and girls stared at each other in puzzled consideration. Maxwell longed to suggest a joiner's bench, but refrained out of consideration for the girls' feelings.
Mellicent's eager face, however, was too eloquent to escape attention, and Mrs Saville smiled at her in an encouraging manner.
”Well, dear, what is it? Don't be afraid. I mean something really nice and handsome; not just a little thing. Tell me what you thought?”
”A--a new violin!” cried Mellicent eagerly. ”Mine is so old and squeaky, and my teacher said I needed a new one badly. A new violin would be nicest of all.”
Mrs Saville looked round the table, caught an expressive grimace going the round of three boyish faces, and raised her eyebrows inquiringly.
”Yes? Whatever you like best, of course. It is all the same to me.
But would the violin be a pleasure to all? What about the boys?”
”They would hear me play! The pieces would sound nicer. They would like to hear them.”
”Ahem!” coughed Maxwell loudly; and at that there was a universal shriek of merriment. Peggy's clear ”Ho! ho!” rang out above the rest, and her mother looked at her with sparkling eyes. Yes, yes, yes; the child was happy! She had settled down already into the cheery, wholesome life of the vicarage, and was in her element among these merry boys and girls!
She hugged the thought to her heart, finding in it her truest comfort.
The laughter lasted several minutes, and broke out intermittently from time to time as that eloquent cough recurred to memory, but after all it was Mellicent who was the one to give the best suggestion.
”Well then, a--a what-do-you-call-it!” she cried. ”A thing-um-me-bob!
One of those three-legged things for taking photographs! The boys look so silly sometimes, rolling about together in the garden, and we have often and often said, 'Don't you wish we could take their photographs?
They _would_ look such frights!' We could have ever so much fun with a what-do-you-call-it?”
”Ah, that's something like!” ”Good business.” ”Oh, wouldn't it be sweet!” came the quick exclamations; and Mrs Saville looked most pleased and excited of all.