Doctor Cupid: A Novel
says Mr. Evans, with a sigh for his lost peace. 'A southern moon, is not
it?' to Talbot.
'Quite long enough, I am sure,' rejoined Peggy, putting her hand
persuasively on her sister's shoulder. 'Come with us! come!'
Talbot cannot help hearing that 'Come!' even while exchanging original
remarks upon the stars of the southern hemisphere with the vicar; nor
can he further help speculating as to whether, if that 'Come!' were
addressed to himself, and were inviting him to follow it to Lapland, to
Hong Kong, or to some yet hotter place, he should have the force of mind
to decline. But at all events Prue has.
'I had rather stay here,' replies she, _sotto voce_, with an accent of
miserable irritation. 'Why should I come? Nobody wants me; nobody misses
me! Please leave me alone.'
There is nothing for it but to comply. With a heavier heart than that
with which she reached it, Margaret leaves the bench and its ill-sorted
occupants. She takes little heed as to the direction of her steps until
she finds herself and her companion approaching the kiosk, whence is
plainly audible the sound of voices, which, as they advance nearer to
it, grows hushed. It is too dark to see into the interior, as above the
little gimcrack temple, memorial of the bad taste of fifty years ago,
rises a brotherhood of tall, spruce firs that project their shade over
and before it.
Just in front of it Talbot stops her to point out to her a shooting-star
that is darting its trail of glory through the immensities of space. Has
he not heard those voices--he must have been deaf if he did not--nor
observed that marked succeeding silence? He shows no sign of uneasiness
or curiosity. His eye is resting apparently, with a calmer enjoyment
than she can bring to it, on the gold mist rolling its gauzy-billows in
the hollows of the park.
It is only to those who come to her with a tranquil and disengaged mind
that the great mother gives the real key of her treasure-houses; and
Peggy's mind to-night is too ruffled to give her any claim to the great
endowment.
They are standing silently side by side, when a noise, proceeding from
the inside of the kiosk, makes itself audible--a noise apparently
intended to counterfeit the mewing of a cat, followed by the crowing of
a most improbable cock.
Talbot does not even turn his head.
'We are not at all frightened, and not much amused,' he says, in a clear
matter-of-fact voice.
'You had not an idea that we were here, had you?' cries Lady Betty,
springing out of the temple, followed by Freddy Ducane. 'Did not I mew
well? and did not Freddy crow badly? Freddy, you have no more idea of
crowing than a carp.'
'I can do better than that,' replies Freddy, in self-defence. 'I am not
in voice to-night.'
'But you had not a notion that we were here, had you?' repeats Lady
Betty pertinaciously.
'As we had heard you talking at the top of your voices for half a mile
before we came up to you, we had some slight inkling of it.'
Peggy wonders whether the cold dryness of his tone is as patent to the
person to whom it is addressed as it is to herself. She supposes that it
is, since she instantly takes possession of him; and, under the pretext
of showing him a plant which can scarcely be distinguishable from its
neighbours under the colourless moonlight, walks him off into a dusky
alley.
Margaret remains alone with Freddy.
'"Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prithee, why so mute?"'
says he familiarly, approaching her.
She looks him fully and gravely in the face. Most people find it
difficult to look at Freddy Ducane without smiling. Peggy feels no such
inclination. Between her and this image of youth and sunshine there
rises another image--a poor little image, to whom this gay weather-cock
gives its weather--a little image that expands or shrinks as this
all-kissing zephyr blows warm or cold upon it.
'Because I have nothing to say, I suppose,' replies she shortly.
'Come with me to the walled garden'--in a wheedling voice--'and show me
the stars.'
'Thank you, I can see them quite well here.'
'"My pretty Peg, my pretty Peg,
Ah, never look so shy!"'
cries he, breaking into a laugh, which she does not echo.
'I am not your pretty Peg; and I have told you several times that I will
not be called "Peg."'
'_Peggy_, then. Personally, I prefer _Peg_; but it is a matter of
opinion. Peggy, are you aware that you have been poaching?'
'I do not know what you mean.' But she does.
'Her ladyship did not much like it, I can tell you,' continues he
delightedly. 'She manifested distinct signs of uneasiness. I could not
keep her quiet, though I went through all my little tricks for her. She
_would_ make those ridiculous noises; and she whipped him off pretty
quickly, did not she? Ah, Peggy'--tenderly--'you would have done better
to have kept to me! _I_ would not have left you in the lurch.'
To this she deigns no answer.
'Where is Prue?' asks he, a moment later, with an easy change of topic.
'What have you done with Prue?'
'I have done nothing with her,' rather sadly.
'You have sent her home with her nurse to bed, I suppose?' suggests he
reproachfully. 'I sometimes think that you are a little hard upon Prue.'
_Hard upon Prue!_ She, whose one thought, waking and sleeping, is how
best to put her strong arm round that fragile body and weakling soul, so
as to shield them from the knocks of this rough world! This, too, from
him, who has introduced the one element of suffering it has ever known
into Prue's little life.
'Am I?' she answers quietly; but her cheek burns.
'There is no one that suits me so well as Prue,' says the young man
sentimentally, looking up to the sky.
'"She's like the keystone of an arch,
That doth consummate beauty;
She's like the music of a march,
That maketh joy of duty!"'
Peggy's eye relents. He may mean it--may be speaking truth--it is not
likely, as he seldom does so; but after all, the greatest liars must,
during their lives, speak more truth than lies. One is prone to believe
what one wishes, and he _may_ mean it.
'There is no one that I am so fond of as I am of Prue,' pursues he, with
a quiver in his voice.
'You have an odd way of showing it sometimes,' says she, in a softened
tone.
'Are you alluding to _that_?' asks he, glancing carelessly over his
shoulder at the kiosk. 'Pooh! I hated it. I shall get milady to pull it
down some day. I was so glad when you and Talbot came up: it was so
dark, and I felt the earwigs dropping on my head.'
'Then why did you go there?' inquires she.
He bursts into a laugh, from which sentiment and quiver are miles away.
'The woman tempted me; at least' (seeing his companion's mouth taking a
contemptuous upward curve at this mode of expression)--'at least, she
seemed to expect it. I always like to do what people seem to expect.'
And Margaret's heart sinks.
CHAPTER V
'To one that has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to gaze upon the fair
And open face of heaven--to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.'
It is the next day. John Talbot has spent a very happy morning. He is a
countryman at heart. Fate has put him into the Foreign Office, and made
him a great man's secretary, and tied him by the leg to London for ten
months out of the twelve; but the country, whose buttercups brightened
his childhood, keeps his heart--the country, with its little larks
upsoaring from its brown furrows; with its green and its russet gowns;
with its good, sweet, innocent noises, and its heavenly smells. He has
been lying on the flat of his back on the sward, with his hands under
his head, staring in luxurious idleness up at the sky, and listening to
the robin's song--in August scarcely anybody but the redbreast
sings--and to the pleasant swish of the wind among the lime-tops. Lying
there alone on the flat of his back--that is to say, at first.
Afterwards he has plenty of company. Not, indeed, that either his host
or his fellow-guests trouble him much. From the lair he has chosen he
has a view of his lady's window. It is true that he looks but seldom
towards it, nor do its carefully closed casements and drawn curtains
hold out much hope of a descent of the sleeping goddess within. Lady
Roupell lets it be understood that she does not wish to be seen or
spoken to till luncheon; and the rest are dispersed, he neither knows
nor cares whither. And yet he has companions. They are in the act of
being escorted out to walk by their nurses when they catch sight of him.
In an instant they bear down upon him as fast as their fat legs will
carry them.
'Just think!' cries Lily, beginning to shout at the top of her voice
long before she reaches him--'just think what Franky has been doing! Is
not he a naughty boy? He took the water-can and emptied it over Nanny's
skirt! She says she will ask mammy to whip him!'
'Which mammy will most certainly decline to do,' says Talbot _sotto
voce_ to himself.
He has raised himself on his elbow, the more safely to receive their
onslaught. He is aware of an idiosyncrasy of Miss Harborough's--that of
narrating hideous crimes as having been committed by her little brother,
which have in reality been executed by herself.
'If it was Franky who upset the water-can, how is it that it is your
frock which is wet?' asks he judicially.
She does not answer, beyond putting her head affectedly on one side, and
rubbing her shoulder against her ear.
'Are you sure that it was not you, and not Franky?'
Instantly, with the greatest ease and affability, she acknowledges that
it was she; and the nurses at that moment coming up, she is about to be
walked off for chastisement, when weakly interceded for by Talbot, who
has the further lunacy to request that both children may be left in his
charge. After that he has a very eventful morning. He is in turn a pony,
a giraffe, a hyaena, a flamingo (unhappily for him the little Harboroughs
have lately visited the Zoological Gardens), a rabbit (about the natural
history and domestic life of which animal he hears some very startling
facts), and the captain of a robber band. Finally, he has to take part
in a terrible game--the one most dreaded by their family of all in the
little Harborough repertoire--Ingestre Hall destroyed by fire, done
with bricks. And the odd thing is that he likes it--likes it better than
Downing Street and the great statesman.
When the luncheon gong sounds he can hardly realise that it is two
o'clock. He is so much dishevelled by his transmigrations--which,
indeed, have been as numerous as Buddha's--that, after having repaired
the injuries to his toilette, he finds that everybody is already in the
dining-room--finds the inevitable chair left vacant for him beside Lady
Betty. He has sat by Lady Betty through so many luncheons and dinners
that it has lost the gloss of novelty, and they speak to each other
scarcely more than a husband and wife would do. It is her voice that he
hears prevailing over those of the rest of the company as he enters the
room, for she has not Cordelia's gift.
'Lambton? Are they any relation to Lord Durham?'
'I do not think so,' replies the hostess carelessly. 'Their father was a
small squire in these parts, who over-farmed himself, and died very much
out at elbows. And their mother--well, their mother was nothing but a
very poor creature' (with a shrug), 'who was always fancying herself
ill, and whom nobody believed until she proved it by dying! Ha! ha! Poor
soul! I do not think that anybody cried much, except Peggy; she cried
her eyes out.'
'Not quite out,' thinks Talbot, remembering the severe blue darts that
shot at him over-night; and to his own soul, at this testimony to her