Doctor Cupid: A Novel
reading last--before Margaret again passes the nursery door. The
interval has been filled by a discussion as to which of the local talent
must be invited to contribute, and which may be, without giving too much
offence, left out; but the larger part has been spent in a confederate
consultation as to how best to prevent Mrs. Evans from singing 'Love,
the Pilgrim.'
The matter is arranged at last; and Peggy puts on her hat and gloves
again to depart. As she repasses the nursery door she finds that an
entire change of decoration has taken place. Instead of the young cynic
defiantly buttoning her boots in the teeth of the law, she sees a little
pious figure in a white nightgown, kneeling by its nurse's side. The
instant, however, that the saintly little form catches sight of her it
is up on its bare legs, and rushing towards her.
'Oh, Miss Lambton, do let me say my prayers to you! it would be so
pleasant!--No, Franky,' with a disposition to hustle her little brother,
who is putting in a like claim; 'you are too little; you can say yours
to Nanny!'
As she speaks she pulls Peggy by the gown into the room; and, placing
her in a chair, kneels down at once--so that there may be no chance of
her escaping--beside her, with hands devoutly folded, but a somewhat
roving eye.
'Which shall I say?' asks she, with a wriggle of the back and an air of
indifference: '"Our Father" or "Gentle Jesus"?'
'Say whichever you please,' replies Margaret gently; 'only attend and
make up your mind which.'
'Oh, then,' with another wriggle, 'I will say "Gentle Jesus."'
After a pause:
'Do you think that there would be any harm in my praying for John
Talbot?'
Margaret gives a little jump. It is, then, an hereditary passion! But
she answers drily:
'Not the least.'
Another pause. The wriggling has ceased.
'Only,' pursues Peggy, quite determined not to supply the form of
petition for Talbot's welfare, 'only you must say it out of your own
head. I am not going to tell you what to say.'
'Oh, then,' with an air of resolution, 'I had better say, "God bless
John Talbot; and I am glad he is here."'
She has pronounced this last somewhat eccentrically-worded supplication
rather loud, and at the end of it her wandering eye takes in an object
which makes her spring from her knees as hastily as she had done before.
'Oh! there is John Talbot!' cries she, tearing out barefoot into the
passage, and flinging herself into his arms.
'I have been praying for you!' cries she, hugging him. 'Miss Lambton
said that I might.'
At this unexpected colouring given to her reluctant permission Peggy
reddens.
'I said that there was no harm in it,' explains Peggy hurriedly; 'there
is no _harm_ in praying for any one.'
'And the more they need it the greater charity it is,' replies he,
looking at her with so sad and deprecating a humility that her anger
against him melts.
CHAPTER IX
'God Almighty first planted a Garden. And indeed it is the Purest
of Humane pleasures. It is the Greatest Refreshment to the Spirit
of Man; Without which Buildings and Pallaces are but Grosse
Handy-works: And man shall ever see that when Ages grow to
Civility and Elegancie they come to Build Stately, sooner than to
Garden Finely: as if Gardening were the Greater Perfection.'
I do not know whether Peggy had ever read Bacon, but she certainly
endorsed his opinion.
'The garden is the only really satisfactory thing,' she says to herself,
three days after that on which she had conducted Miss Harborough's
devotions, as she stands beside her carnation-bed, and notes how many
fat buds have, during the night, broken into pale sulphur and striped
and blood-red flowers.
To few of us, I think, has not at one time or other of our lives the
doubt presented itself, whether the people we love are not a source of
more pain than pleasure to us, what with their misfortunes, their
ill-doings, and their deaths. But despite frost, and snail, and fly, and
drought, and flood, the joy in a garden must always enormously exceed
the pain. The frost may shrivel the young leaves, but the first sun-kiss
brings out green successors; the drought may make the tender herbs bow
and droop, but at the next warm rain-patter they look up again. The
frost that nips our human hearts often no after-sunbeam can uncongeal;
and the rain falls too late to revive the flower that the world's cruel
drought has killed.
'Did you find out how soon they are going?' asks Prue breathlessly,
running down the road to meet her sister on her return from the Manor,
in her eagerness to get her tidings.
It has been the one thought that has filled her mind during the three
hours of Margaret's absence. Peggy shakes her head despondently.
'Milady did not know.'
'I suppose that they had gone out riding before you got there.'
This is not a question, so Margaret thinks herself exempted from the
necessity of answering it.
'Had they gone out riding before you got there?' repeats Prue, with
feverish pertinacity.
It _is_ a question now, so she must make some reply. She only shakes her
head.
'Then you saw them set off?'--very eagerly. 'How did she look?
beautiful, I am sure!'
'I did not see them.'
It is a moment before the younger girl takes in what the last sentence
implies; then she says in a changed low key:
'You mean to say that they did not go out riding at all?'
'No,' replies Peggy, softly putting her arm round her sister's
shoulders, as if she would ward off the imminent trouble from her by
that kind and tender gesture; 'they did not go out riding at all; they
sat in the park together instead.'
There is a short silence.
'Then he threw me over for nothing?' says Prue, in a choked whisper.
'Yes,' in a whisper too.
Prue has snatched herself out of Peggy's arms, and drawn up her small
willowy figure.
'He shall not have the chance of playing fast and loose with me again in
a hurry,' she says, her poor face burning.
Alas! he would have the chance next day, if he chose to take it; but he
does not even take the trouble to do that. Two whole days pass, and
nothing is either seen or heard of him. And through these two long days
Prue, with flagging appetite and fled sleep, rejecting occupation,
starting at the sound of the door-bell, watches for him; and Peggy
watches too, and starts, and is miserable for company.
During those weary two days Prue's mood changes a hundred times, varying
from pitiful attempts at a dignified renunciation of him, always ending
in a deluge of tears, to agonised efforts at finding excuses for his
neglect, and irritation at her sister for not being able to say that she
thinks them sufficing ones.
'He is so hospitable,' she says wistfully, as the sun sets upon the
second empty day; 'he has almost exaggerated ideas of what he owes to
his guests. And after all, there is no one else to entertain them.
Milady does not trouble her head about them; he has such good manners;
he is so courteous! Come now, prejudiced as you always are against him,
you yourself have often said, "How courteous he is!"' Then, as Peggy
makes but a faint and dubious sign of acquiescence, she adds irritably:
'Whether you own it or not, you have said so repeatedly; but there is no
use in talking to a person who blows hot and cold, says one thing to-day
and another to-morrow.'
The third morning has come. In the garden, dew-crisped and odorous, but
whose spicy clove-carnation breath brings no solace to her careless
nostril, Prue sits bent and listless, her fragile prettiness dimmed, and
the nosegay of her choicest flowers--usually most grudgingly
plucked--extravagantly gathered by Margaret five minutes ago, in the
hope that their morning beauty may tempt her sick chick to a smile,
lying disregarded on the grass beside her, and sniffed at by Mink, who
makes a face of unaffected disgust at the mignonette.
'He has never in his life been so long without coming to see us when he
was at home,' says Prue dejectedly; 'once he was thirty-six hours, but
that was accounted for afterwards by his having had one of his neuralgic
headaches. Do you think'--with a little access of life and
animation--'that he can be ill?'
'It is possible, of course,' replies Margaret gravely; 'but I do not
think it is probable.'
'If I could only _know_,' says the other wearily; 'if I could be _sure_;
it would be something to be _sure_ of anything! I am so tired of
wondering!'
'I might go up to the Big House to find out for you,' suggests Peggy,
magnanimously swallowing down her own acute distaste to this
proposition, and speaking with a cheerful relish, as if she liked it. 'I
could easily make an excuse to go up to the Big House; shall I go?'
The capricious poppy colour has sprung back into Prue's thin cheek.
'Oh, if you would!'
'Of course I will,' replies Margaret gaily; 'it will be a nice walk for
me; the garden makes me so lazy about walking. What time shall I go?
morning or afternoon?'
'Oh, if you did not mind, morning is the soonest.'
The words are scarcely out of her mouth before ting, tang! sharply
sounds the hall-door bell. It is a bell that is hardly ever pulled in a
forenoon, save by one person--a person who does not confine himself to
the canonical hours of calling.
In a moment there is a light in Prue's dimmed eyes, and Margaret's great
blue ones beam for company.
'I think that I need not go up to the Big House, after all,' she says,
with soft gladness.
'Shall I go away,' asks Prue, in a trembling whisper, 'and not come back
for ten minutes or so? Perhaps he would think better of me if I did not
seem so eager to meet him. Shall I?'
'I think I would not,' answers Peggy gently; 'I would sit quietly here,
just as if nothing had happened. I think it would be more dignified.'
They wait in silence. What a long time Sarah is in putting on a clean
apron and turning down her sleeves! But he is admitted at last, has
passed through the house, and is stepping across the turf towards them.
_He!_ But what he? Alas for Prue! there are more he's than one in the
world--more he's that call at uncanonical hours!
'Oh, Peggy!' she says, with almost a sob, 'it is only John Talbot! It is
not he after all.'
Peggy does not answer. Her feelings, though nearly as poignant as her
sister's, are a good deal more complex. An indignation for which she can
perfectly account, and an agitation for which she can give herself no
reason at all, make her disappointment, though not far from being as
bitter, less simple than Prue's.
She advances to meet her visitor with an air that would make a more
impudent heart than his sink. Over her face is written, though the words
do not actually pass her lips, that least reassuring of salutations, 'To
what are we indebted for the honour of this visit?'
A woman's anger is seldom wholly reasonable, and on this occasion
Margaret's indignation against Talbot is called forth not only by his
being himself, but by his not being Freddy Ducane, which is certainly
more his misfortune than his fault. After all, he is, for a villain, not
possessed of very much effrontery, since the austerity of so young an
eye strikes him dumb.
The only person who shows him any civility is Mink, who, being of a
rather superficial character, is glad of any addition to his social
circle, and does not inquire too nicely into its quality.
It is probable that Talbot, being a man of the world, would have
recovered the use of his tongue in time; but as he is rather slow about
it, Margaret takes the initiative.
'Is it something about the village concert?' she asks.
He looks puzzled.
'The village concert! I am afraid that I have not heard anything about
the village concert.'