Part 24 (1/2)

By the close of the week Peggy is at her wits' end. She has spent hours in the hot kitchen trying to concoct some dainty that may t.i.tillate that sickly palate. In vain. To her anxious apostrophes, 'Oh, Prue! you used to like my jelly!' 'Oh, Prue! cannot you fancy this cream? I made it myself!' there is never but the one answer, the pushed-away plate, and the 'Thank you, I am not hungry!'

One morning, when the almost ostentatiously neglected breakfast, and the hollow cheeks that seem to have grown even hollower since over-night, have made Peggy well-nigh desperate, she puts on her hat and runs up to the Manor. She must hold converse with some human creature or creatures upon the subject that occupies so large and painful a share of her thoughts. Perhaps to other and impartial eyes Prue may not appear so failing as to her over-anxious ones. She reaches the Big House just as milady takes her seat at the luncheon-table. Miss and Master Harborough, who have been given swords by some injudicious admirer, have been rus.h.i.+ng bellowing downstairs, brandis.h.i.+ng them in pursuit of the footmen. Nor has the eloquence of the latter at all availed to induce Franky to relinquish his, even when he is hoisted into his high chair and invested with his dinner-napkin. He still wields it, announcing a doughty intention of cutting his roast-beef with it.

'You will do nothing of the kind!' replies milady, who, on principle, always addresses children in the same tone and words as she would grown-up people; 'it would be preposterous; no one ever cuts beef with a sword. You would be put into Bedlam if you did.'

And Lily, whose clamour has been far in excess of her brother's, chimes in with pharisaic officiousness, 'Nonsense, Franky! do not be naughty!

You must remember that we are not at home!'

'Bedlam!' repeats Franky, giving up his weapon peaceably, and pleased at the sound. 'Where is Bedlam? Is that where mammy has gone?'

Milady laughs.

'Not yet! Eat your dinner, and hold your tongue.'

Franky complies, and allows the conversation to flow on without any further contribution from himself.

'It was not such a bad shot, was it?' says milady, chuckling; 'I heard from her this morning.'

'Yes?'

'They are still at the B----'s. She says that the one advantage of visiting them is, that it takes all horrors from death! Ha!--ha!'

'Prue heard from her the other day,' says Peggy, speaking slowly and with an overclouded brow; 'she asked Prue to pay her a visit.'

'H'm! What possessed her to do that, I wonder? I suppose Freddy wheedled her into it. Well, and when is she to go?'

'She--she's not going.'

'H'm! You would not give her leave?'

Peggy glances expressively at Miss Harborough, who has dropped her knife and fork, and is listening with all her ears to what has the obvious yet poignant charm of not being intended for them.

'Pooh!' replies milady, following the direction of Margaret's look. 'Ne faites pas attention a ces marmots! ils ne comprennent pas de quoi il s'agit!'

At the sound of the French words a look of acute baffled misery has come into Lily's face, which, later on, deepens on her being a.s.sured that she and her brother have sufficiently feasted, and may efface themselves.

Franky gallops off joyfully with his sword; and his sister follows reluctantly with hers. As soon as they are really out of earshot--Peggy has learnt by experience the length of Lily's ears--she answers the question that had been put to her by another.

'Do you think that I ought to have let her go?'

Milady shrugs her shoulders.

'Everybody goes there. Lady Clanra.n.a.ld, who is the most straitlaced woman in London, takes her girls there; one must march with one's age.'

The colour has deepened in Margaret's face.

'Then you think that I ought to have let her go?'

Lady Roupell is peeling a peach. She looks up from it for an instant, with a careless little shrug.

'I daresay that she would have amused herself. If she likes bear-fighting, and apple-pie beds, and practical jokes, I am sure that she would.'