Peggy would much rather not have laughed; but there is something that seems to her so ludicrous in the fact of her abortive advances to Mr. Evans having been overheard and triumphed at, that she cannot help yielding to a brief and stifled mirth at her own expense. And, after all, what he says is sense. He is a very bad man, and she dislikes him extremely; but to let him observe to her that the news from Afghanistan seems warlike; or to remark in return that she has never seen the root-crops look better, need not in the least detract from the thoroughness of her ill opinion of him, and may make the ensuing hour a shade less tedious to herself than would entire silence. So she turns her candid eyes, severely, serenely blue, for the first time, full upon him, and says:
'I think you are right; I think we had better talk.'
But of course, at that sudden permission to talk, every possible topic of conversation flies out of his head. And yet as she remains, with her two blue eyes sternly fixed upon him, awaiting the question or questions that she has given him permission to put, he must say something; so he asks stupidly:
'Who is your neighbour?'
'Our vicar.'
'What is his name?' (How infinitely little he cares what the vicar's name is; but it gives him time.)
'E V A N S,' replies she, spelling very distinctly and slowly, afraid that she may be overheard if she pronounce the whole name.
'Oh, thanks; and the lady opposite in mourning is Mrs. E V A N S?' (spelling too).
'She is Mrs. Evans; but she is not in mourning; she is in her wedding-gown!' replies Peggy, breaking into a smile.
She never can help smiling at the thought of Mrs. Evans's wedding-dress, any more than Charles Lamb's Cheshire cats can help laughing when they think of Cheshire being a County Palatine. She is smiling broadly now. Well, if her smile come seldom, there is no doubt that it is a very agreeable one when it does come. What sort of thing could he say that would be likely to bring it back?
'I did not know that people were ever married in black.'
She shakes her head oracularly.
'No more they are!'
She is smiling still. (What a delightful wide mouth! and what dents de jeune chien!)
'It is made out of an old Geneva gown of his?' suggests Talbot wildly.
Again she shakes her nut-brown head.
'Wrong.'
'I have it!' he cries eagerly. 'I know more about the subject than you think; it has been dyed.'
The mirth has retired from her mouth, and now lurks in the tail of her bright eye.
'You did not find that out for yourself,' she says distrustfully; 'some one told you.'
'Upon my honour, it is my own unassisted discovery,' replies he solemnly, and then they both laugh.
Finding herself betrayed into such a harmony of light-hearted merriment with him, Margaret pulls herself up. After all, she must not forget that there is a medium between the stiff politeness she had planned and this hail-fellow-well-met-ness into which she finds herself somehow sliding. Nor does his next sentence, though innocently enough meant, at all conduce to make her again relax her austerity.
'I should not allow my wife to dye her wedding-gown black.'
His wife! How dare he allude to such a person? He, with his illegal Betty ogling and double-entendre-ing and posturing opposite! How dare he allude to marriage at all? He to whom that sacred tie is a derision! She has frozen up again.
Without having the faintest suspicion of the cause, he is wonderingly aware of the result. Is it possible that she can object to his introducing his hypothetical wife into the consideration? She is more than welcome to retort upon him with her supposititious husband. He will give her the chance.
'Would you?'
'Would I what?'
'Dye your wedding-gown black?'
She knows that she would not. She knows that she would lay it up in lavender, and tenderly show the yellowed skirt and outlandish sleeves to her grandchildren forty years hence. But in the pleasure of contradicting him, truth is worsted.
'Yes.'
'You would?' in a tone of surprise.
She must repeat her fib.
'Yes.'
'Well, I should not have thought it.'
He would like her to ask him why he would not have thought it; but she does not oblige him.
'I think it would show a want of sentiment,' pursues he perseveringly.
'Yes?'
Good heavens! If she has not got back again to her monosyllable!
'Do not you?'
'No.'
'I should think it would bring ill-luck, should not you?'
'No.'
'Should not you, really?'
'I do not think that it is worth arguing about,' replies Peggy, roused and wearied. 'I may dye mine, and you need not dye yours, and we shall neither of us be any the worse.'
'And yet – ' he begins; but she interrupts him.
'After all,' she says, turning once more upon him those two dreadfully direct blue eyes – 'after all, I am not at all sure that it is not a good emblem of marriage – the white gown that goes through muddy waters, and comes out black on the other side.'
There is such a weight of meaning and emphasis in her words that he is silent, and wishes that she had kept to her monosyllables.
CHAPTER IV
'Yon meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes,
More by your number than your light;
You common people of the skies,
What are you when the moon shall rise?'
'Oh, Peggy! I have had such a dinner!' cries Prue, in an ecstatic voice, drawing her sister away into a window as soon as the ladies have reached the drawing-room.
'Have you indeed?' replies Margaret distrustfully, and wilfully misunderstanding. 'Had you two helps of venison, like Mr. Evans?'
'Oh! I am not talking of the food!' rejoins the other impatiently. 'I do not know whether or not I ate anything; I do not think I did. But they were so amusing, I did not want to talk. He saw that I did not want to talk, so he let me sit and listen.'
'That was very considerate of him.'
'She was so amusing; she told us such funny stories about Mr. Harborough – no harm, you know, but rather making game of him. I do not know what Mrs. Evans meant by saying that she stuck at nothing. She said one or two things that I did not quite understand; but I am sure there was no harm in them.'
'Perhaps not.'
'And she was so kind to me,' pursues Prue, with enthusiasm; 'trying to draw me into the conversation, asking how long I had been out.'
But here the sisters' tête-à-tête is broken in upon by the high-pitched voice of the subject of their conversation.
'Who would like to come and see my children in bed? Do not all speak at once. H'm! nobody? This is hardly gratifying to a mother's feelings. Miss Lambton, I am sure you will come; you look as if you were fond of children. And you, Miss Prue, I shall insist upon your coming, whether you like it or not!'
So saying she puts her hand familiarly through the delighted little girl's arm, and walks off with her, Peggy following grudgingly. She has not the slightest desire to see the young Harboroughs, asleep or wake; though she has already had to defend her heart against an inclination to grow warm towards them, upon their rosy nightgowned entry before dinner. She has to defend it still more strongly, when, the nursery being reached, she sees them lying in the all-gentleness of perfect slumber in their cribs. Even that not innumerous class who dislike the waking child, the self-assertive, interrogative, climbing, bawling, smashing, waking child, grow soft-hearted at the sight of the little sleeping angel. Is this really Lady Betty bending over the little bed? recovering the outflung chubby arm from fear of cold, straightening the coverlets, and laying a light hand on the cool forehead? Peggy ought to be pleased by such a sign of grace; but when we have formed a conception of a person we are seldom quite pleased by the discovery of a fact that declines to square with that conception.
'You are very fond of them?' she says in a whisper, that, without her intending it, is interrogative; and through which pierces perhaps a tone of more surprise than she is herself aware of.
Lady Betty stares.
'Fond of them! Why, I am a perfect fool about them; at least I am about him! I do not care so much about her; she is a thorough Harborough! Did you ever see such a likeness as hers to her father? He' (with a regretful motion of the head toward the boy's bed) 'is a little like him too; but he has a strong look of me. When his eyes are open he is the image of me. I have a good mind to wake him to show you.'
'Oh, do not!' cries Margaret eagerly; 'it would be a sin!'
But the caution is needless. The mother had no real thought of breaking in upon that lovely slumber.
'Did you ever see such a duck?' says she rapturously, stooping over him; 'and his hand!' – taking the little plump fist softly into her own palm – 'look at his hand! Will not he be a fine strong man? He can pummel his nurse already, cannot he, Harris? And not a day's illness in all his little life, bless him!'
Her eyes are almost moist as she speaks. The colour would no doubt come and go in her cheeks, only that unfortunately it has contracted the habit of never going, unless washed off by eau-de-Cologne. Against her will, Peggy feels her ill opinion melting away like mist; but happily, on her return to the drawing-room, she is able to restore it in its entirety. For no sooner have the men appeared than Lady Betty disappears. The exact moment of her flight and its companion Peggy has been unable to verify; as, at the moment when it must have taken place, she was buttonholed by Mrs. Evans on the subject of rose-rash, an unhandsome little disorder at present rioting among the Evans's ranks; and for which Peggy is supposed to have a specific. But though she did not actually see the person who shared Lady Betty's evasion, she is as sure as to who it was as if her very bodily eyes had looked upon him, – John Talbot, of course. With John Talbot she is now dishonestly philandering under the honest harvest-moon; to John Talbot she is now talking criminal nonsense, with those very lips that five minutes ago were laid upon the sacred velvet cheeks of her little children. With a curling lip Margaret looks round the room.
Why, Prue is missing too, and Freddy! Prue, the prone to quinsy, to throats, to delicacy of all kinds, straying over the deep-dewed grass without cloak or goloshes! For it would be expecting something more than human of her to suppose that when invited out by her admirer to hear all that the poets have said of Orion and Arcturus and the sister Pleiads, she should stop him in the full flow of his inspiration to inquire after what the Americans prettily call her 'gums.' If she will only have the sense to keep to the gravel paths! The elder sister has walked to the window, and now stands straining her eyes down the long alley to see if she can catch any glimpse of the little figure that, since its wailing infancy seventeen years ago, has caused her so many anxious hours. Shall she take upon herself the invidious office of spy, and follow her? or trust to the child's common sense, and to the possibility of her occasionally dropping her eyes from the enormous moon, now queening it in a great field of radiance above her head, to her own thin-shod feet? She is still hesitating when a voice, coming from behind her, makes her start.
'What a night!'
She turns to find that the utterer of this original ejaculation is none other than John Talbot. Is it possible that they have already returned from their lovers' ramble? But no! there is no sign of Lady Betty. It is clear that he could not have been the companion of her stroll. For the second time this evening Margaret has found herself in error.
'You?' she says, in a tone of rather vexed surprise.
'Why not?'
'I thought that you were out.'
'I! no!'
A moment's silence. Whom then could she have lured into her toils? Freddy? But Freddy must be with Prue. Mr. Evans? the diplomate? There is not much choice.
Her speculations are again broken in upon by the voice:
'Will not you take a turn?'
'I think not; that is to say' – correcting herself – 'I shall only go a few steps, just to find my sister.'
'May I help you to find her?'
'I do not know why I should give you that trouble.'
A moment's silence, spent by both in reflections. This is the outcome of his.
'I do not think that I have done anything fresh.'
'Anything fresh?'
'Not since we parted; nothing to earn me a new set of snubs.'
She smiles a little. 'You have not had much time.'
'And I will not do anything fresh.' Then aside, 'I am blessed if I know what I did.'
'That is rather a rash engagement,' smiling again.
It is fortunate that her teeth are so good, for she shows a great many of them.
'But if I keep it I may come?' pertinaciously.
'I suppose so;' and out they step together.
It cannot be helped, but it is a little perverse of fate that, after all, it should be she who, in appearance at least, is the one to philander in the moonlight with this despiser of the marriage law. And whether or no it is his presence that brings her ill-luck, it is some time before she succeeds in the object of her search. The grounds are rather large, with meandering walks and great clumps of shrubs that hide them from one another.
Each of Prue's favourite resorts has been visited, but without result. The walled garden, hushed and sleeping; the trellised wall, where ancient brick has disappeared beneath the thronged faces, diversely dazzling, of the brown, orange, tawny and sulphur nasturtiums; the retired seat beneath the tulip-tree. All, all are empty. Nothing remains but the kiosk, and Peggy feels sure that Prue is not in the kiosk.
Thither, however, they bend their steps; but before they reach it a turn of the walk reveals to them two seated figures. One is certainly the Prue whom they seek; Prue sitting upon an uncomfortable garden bench, on which nobody ever sits – on which she herself has never sat before. But is it conceivable that, since dinner, Freddy can have doubled in size, can have lost all the hair off the top of his head, and have exchanged his cambric shirt-front and his diamond and turquoise studs for a double-breasted waistcoat buttoned to the chin?
With a feeling akin to stupefaction Peggy realises that it is Mr. Evans, and not Freddy, who is Prue's companion. As they approach he rises reluctantly. He had much rather that they had not come. Prue never wants to talk to him. She lets him sit and silently ruminate and dream beside her; a cigarette between his lips, and a blessed oblivion of dissenters, boys' schooling, girls' ugly faces, rickety baby, Christmas bills, invading his lulled brain. Prue neither rises nor changes her position. Her arms lie listlessly on her lap, and she is staring up at Cassiopeia, the one constellation for ever exalted above its fellows by having had Freddy Ducane for its exhibitor.
'Do you think you are quite wise to sit out here, with nothing over your shoulders?' asks Margaret, stooping over her sister, and speaking in a tone of such exceeding gentleness as positively to astound Talbot, who had not calculated upon the existence of such tones in a voice which has conscientiously employed only its harsher keys for his benefit.
'I am not cold,' replies Prue dully.
'How long have you been here? Long?'
'I do not know.'
'We were too comfortable to take note of time, were not we, Miss Prue?' 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.