Chapter Seventeen.
A week after her return to Yew Hedge, Peggy was on her way to tea at the vicarage, when she was joined by Rob Darcy, who jumped over a wall at her approach, and exhibited an extraordinary amount of surprise at seeing her, considering how long he had been on the outlook for just such an event.
“Where are you going, my pretty maid?” he demanded, “and—”
“I’m going to the vicarage, sir,” she said promptly, with an accompaniment of old-fashioned curtsey which brought the twinkle into Rob’s eyes.
However solemn he might be, he never could resist a smile at Peggy’s saucy ways, and to-day indeed he did not appear solemn at all, but unusually beaming and radiant.
“Then I’ll go with you, my pretty maid, for I’ve been asked too, in a breathless note from Mellicent, with neither beginning nor ending, nor comma nor full stop. If any one else had written in such a state of agitation, I should have thought something thrilling had occurred, but Mellicent is guaranteed to go off her head on the slightest provocation. Probably it is nothing more exciting than a cake or a teacloth which is to be used for the first time. She said that I must come, whatever happened, for it was dreadfully important, but I have really not thought much about what it could be, for I am accustomed to receiving violent summonses which mean nothing at all. The first time I ran nearly half the way, and arrived with a purple face and such a stitch in my side as nearly finished my mortal career, and she said: ‘Oh, have you come? I didn’t think you would. I want to show you my new hat!’ Another time she was out, and had forgotten that she had asked me at all; but as she has asked you too, that will hardly be the case to-day.”
Peggy threw back her head and regarded Rob with a curious scrutiny. “Methinks I perceive an air of unusual festivity in my venerable friend. It takes a great deal to rouse him to any sign of feeling, so one must needs conclude that some important event had occurred. May one inquire its nature?”
“Peggy may, if she cares to hear it!” returned Rob briefly. “I have had one or two pieces of good luck lately, Mariquita, which have cheered me up. That’s all. I want to earn some money, you know, and not depend entirely on what the father allows me. My books and papers have done well in one sense, though there’s not much money to be made out of scientific writing, but now I believe I see my way to making a good thing out of my plants. I think I told you before that I have sold some of the specimens which I brought home at a very good price, and I have one shrub in particular which is bringing in quite a little income. It’s a species of broom which I discovered in the most accidental fashion. I was on a hunting expedition one day when I was in Africa, and was hiding behind a clump of broom, when I noticed that one bush was different from the rest. They were plain, but it was mottled in two distinct shades of the same colour. It was evidently a freak, a disease of some sort, as such variations generally are, but it was uncommonly pretty all the same. I had never seen anything of the kind before, and, without conceit, I may say that I know a good deal more about plants than the ordinary professional gardener. Well, I examined it, and it occurred to me, Peg, that it would be a much better day’s work to secure that shrub than to go on with my sport. I unloaded my gun, marked the spot, and had a look round, to see if I could find any further specimens, but no, all the rest were the ordinary type. The first bush was the one exception. Luckily it was not very big, and I managed to dig it up and get it home alive, and after that there was no difficulty, for it is healthy enough, and grows almost as well as the common species. I set to work striking cuttings, and, after waiting until I had a good supply on hand, sent specimens of the bloom to several big nurserymen. They took it up at once with the utmost keenness, and I am now able to sell cuttings as fast as I can strike them, and for a very good price into the bargain. Of course this won’t last for ever, because by degrees other people will get their own stock, but luckily the plant is a slow grower, and meantime they are obliged to come to me, and I have the monopoly of the market. So my travels have turned out more of a success in a monetary sense than I expected, and I am beginning to realise that a man who understands botany, and who has also a love for roaming about forbidden lands, may discover unknown treasures, and do well for himself by bringing them home. It is a happy discovery for me, for I have no chance in the beaten lines, and it will be a solution of many difficulties if I can make a little money in this way.”
“You will go away, you mean? You will leave England and go abroad?” queried Peggy, with a feeling that the foundations of the earth were giving way beneath her, and that life itself was a delusion, since, at a moment’s notice, the pillar of strength on which she had depended above all others could calmly announce its own purpose of withdrawal. “Do you mean that you will settle there altogether, and never come home any more?” She was under the impression that she had put the question in a calm and impersonal manner, but in reality there was a wistful tremor in the voice which Rob was quick to catch.
“I shall be able to answer that question better later on, Mariquita,” he said quietly. “It depends on—circumstances! But, so far as I can see, these journeys must form an important part of my life; I must come and go, and as there will necessarily be a certain amount of danger involved, you needn’t speak of it in public at present. It will be time enough to tell the others, when I am about to start, for they will then have so much less time to worry. I tell you now because—because I always did tell you all my plans, I suppose. It’s an old habit.”
“And you know that I am too sensible to worry. I promise to be duly anxious when the time comes, but I really can’t agitate myself about lions’ jaws in an English lane, or feel apprehensive of any more savage assault, than we shall receive at the vicarage if you persist in dawdling along at this rate! It’s very kind of you to make an exception in my favour, but it’s an honour I could have done very well without. It’s a poor thing, I must say, to come home from India, and have old friends begging you to settle down among them, and then immediately turning round and saying, ‘I’m off to Africa!’ as if your presence in the same hemisphere was more than they could bear. You are a champion wet blanket, Rob! Your items of good news are calculated to drive your friend into melancholy madness. I hope Mellicent’s disclosures will be of a more agreeable nature, or I shall be sorry I came out at all.”
“I do love to see you in a temper, Mariquita. You are a capital little spitfire. Go on abusing me, do! You can’t think how I enjoy it!” returned Rob promptly; which request, needless to say, was sufficient to seal Miss Peggy’s lips until the vicarage gate was reached.
Two eager faces appeared pressed against a window, and Mrs Asplin and Mellicent hurried out into the hall to greet their visitors and escort them into the schoolroom with an air of suppressed excitement. Tea was laid on the centre table in the old-time fashion which Peggy approved, and the vicar was standing before the empty grate, trying to look dignified and proper, with the most comical expression of amusement twitching his long lean face and twinkling out of his eyes.
“What do you think?” began Mrs Asplin tragically, seating herself in state in an old armchair and endeavouring to keep up an imposing front, despite the fact that the absence of the fourth castor sent her tilting first to one side and then to the other. “What do you think we have got to show you in the drawing-room?”
“What do you think? What do you think?” echoed Mellicent all in one breath; and the two visitors glanced at each other in mischievous amusement. These dear, simple-minded people so intensely enjoyed their little mysteries and excitements that it would be cruel indeed not to indulge them. Rob ruffled his locks and frowned bewilderment, while Peggy rolled her eyes to the ceiling and cried:
“I’ve no idea, but don’t tell; let me guess it! Animal or mineral?”
“Animal.”
“Fine or superfine?”
“Not fair! Not fair! You can only put questions that can be answered by ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”
“How strict you are, to be sure! Well, then, is it mineral? No! Vegetable? No! Animal? Yes! Ornamental? It must be ornamental, or you wouldn’t be so proud of it!”
Mellicent and her mother looked at one another and queried with uplifted eyebrows. The girl formed a vigorous “No!” The woman smiled indulgently and said:
“I think it is! I think it is very pretty!” and the vicar could throw no further light on the subject than to say that he agreed with both.
“It is useful then?” queried Peggy next; but this question fared no better than the first.
“Not a bit,” cried Mellicent. “It used to be, or, at least, part of it did, but now it can do nothing at all but just—”
“Be careful, dear! You will give them a clue. Oh yes, I think we can say it is useful. Its general characteristic is usefulness, and it will soon settle down again into its old ways.”
Peggy turned to Rob with a gesture of despair, and then started afresh on a different tack.
“Is it an article in general use? Do you find one in every house?”
“No, no!”
“In our house?”
Giggles from Mellicent, reproving glances from her father, a decided “No!” from Mrs Asplin.
“In Rob’s house?”
“N–ot at present!”
“Could you have more than one in any house at the same time?”
Flutters of consternation and alarm—mysterious chuckles of laughter.
“You could, but one at a time is enough for most people. Two or three would be rather embarrassing!”
“Especially in a small house, because where should we sit in the evening? There would be no room for us!” said Mellicent meaningly, at which mysterious reply the listeners grew more mystified than ever.
“It must be very large!” they murmured thoughtfully. “What can it be? We shall never guess, so we might as well give it up at once and let you tell us. What is the wretched thing?”
“It’s not wretched at all! It is very, very happy! It is—take hold of your chair, Peg, and hold tight! It is—An Engaged Couple!”
“A wh–wh–what?” Peggy let her muscles slacken and leant back, limp and shapeless, against the cushions, while Rob, in his turn, gave a whistle of amazement.
“An engaged couple! Oh, I say! Has that deep old Rex stolen a march on us behind our backs, and brought his fiancée?”
“No, indeed! Nothing of the sort! Rex has no sweetheart except his old mother. I’d be delighted if he had—that’s to say, if he could find a girl worthy of him, but I’ve never seen her yet. Guess again, dears! You are very hot, but it’s not Rex.”
“Rosalind!” was Peggy’s first thought; but no, it could not be Rosalind. That, of course, was impossible, while Oswald was already a married man, and Mellicent obviously out of the question. Who could it be? Peggy mentally summoned before her every member of the old merry party, and hazarded yet another suggestion.
“Not Fräulein? Good old Fräulein, come back from Germany with a long-bearded professor in her train?”
“Not Fräulein, no, but the professor might apply. Nearer home, child! You have not guessed every member of the family yet. You have not thought of—”
“Esther!” screamed Peggy, and instantly read confirmation in the smiles of assent. “It is! It is! Esther and the man with the dusty coat! Oh, how lovely! How perfectly, deliciously lovely and quaint! Not an old maid, after all, but the first to be engaged and married! Oh, Esther, Esther! Who would have thought it? Who would have believed that you could condescend to such foolishness?”
“Ha! ha! ha!” guffawed Rob, in rolling, subterranean laughter. “What a joke! I’ll have something to say to Miss Esther on this subject! She must be made to realise the inconsistency of her conduct. What about the ladies’ school?”
“Is she fond of him? Is he fond of her? When did it happen? When did they come? How did they break it to you? Did they walk in together, hand in hand, and kneel down before you, so that you could say, ‘Bless you, my children,’ in approved stage fashion?”
“Yes, they did,” cried Mellicent gushingly. “At least, if they didn’t, it was almost as good. She was coming home over Sunday, you know, and he met her in town, and—and asked her, you know, and then he got into the train, and intended to go as far as the first station, and he went on and on, until suddenly here they were, and father and mother and I were standing on the platform to receive them. And she got out and he got out, and they looked so silly and she said, ‘M–m–my friend, Professor Reid,’ and he tried to shake hands with mother three separate times over, and couldn’t find her hand, he was so horribly embarrassed, and then we all drove home in the most horrible silence, and came into the drawing-room, and Esther went crimson in the face, and said, ‘Father and mother, I want to tell you—Professor Reid has asked me—I have per-omised to be his wife,’ and he scraped his feet on the floor and blurted out funny short sentences, three words at a time, ‘Love her dearly,’ ‘Feel much honoured,’ ‘Object of life,’ ‘Make her happy,’ and mother said, ‘Oh, my dear child, I am so glad! I am so thankful for your happiness!’ and set to work and cried all the rest of the evening, and father wriggled about in his coat and looked horribly uncomfortable, and said, ‘Hum—hum—hum. Come into the study, and have a smoke!’”
“My dear Mellicent! You have a most uncomfortable memory! Your capacity for unimportant detail is truly astounding!” cried the vicar protestingly; but Mellicent’s description had been received with so much interest by the visitors that the snub had but little effect. She proceeded to enlarge on the appearance, manner, and eccentricities of the brother-to-be, while Peggy gasped, gurgled, and exclaimed with a fervour great enough to satisfy the most exacting of gossips.
“I never, no, never, heard anything so exciting. Did she tell you that I met them in London? I remarked on the condition of his coat—inches thick in dust, I do assure you, and she was haughty, and gave me to understand that he had something better to do than brush his clothes. I hope she won’t bear me a grudge for my indiscretion. It will be a lesson to me not to make personal remarks for the future. Dear, dear me, how I do long to peep in at the drawing-room window! Do you think they would mind very much, if they looked up and saw my face flattened against the pane? When are we going to see them, and to what class of engaged couples do they belong? Proper? Mediocre? Gushingly loving?”
“H’m!” deliberated Mellicent uncertainly. “He calls her, ‘My dear.’ If I were engaged, and a man called me ‘My dear,’ I should break it off on the spot; but I believe he likes her all the same. He kept handing her the butter and cruet at breakfast every other minute, and he jumps up to open the door for her, and asks if she doesn’t feel the draught. And as for her, she perfectly scowls at you if you dare to breathe in his presence. She thinks he is the most wonderful man that ever lived.”
“Quite right too! I mean to be very proud of him myself; for he is to be my own son. I don’t know him yet, but from all we have heard I am sure it will be easy to take him into our hearts. Peggy dear, we have a quarter of an hour before tea, and we must not disturb the poor dears until then, so come into the garden and have a walk round with me. We haven’t had a chat to ourselves for an age of Sundays.”
No, Peggy reflected, this was quite true; but there had been reasons why she, at least, had avoided tête-à-tête interviews, and she had believed that Mrs Asplin would be even more anxious than herself to leave the dreaded subject untouched. Such, however, was evidently not the case, for no sooner was the garden reached than she burst into impetuous speech.
“Oh, Peggy, child, isn’t this delightful? Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it just the most wonderful and unexpected answer to my prayers? Here have I been troubling my foolish head about what was to become of all these dear people when I was not here, and now this smooths every difficulty away. It troubled me to think of my dear girl working for herself, and finding the fight grow harder and harder as the years passed, as all women must, and of Austin left to Mellicent’s scatter-brained care; but you see I might have had more faith, for my fears were needless Esther’s home will be a stronghold for the family, and Professor Reid is so congenial in his tastes that Austin will find unending interest in his society. Of course they could not live together, but you know the vicar has decided that he cannot keep on his parish much longer, as he is not strong enough to do justice to the work, and when the break comes it would be delightful if he and Mellicent could take a little house near Esther in Oxford, where they could see her constantly and have the benefit of her wise advice. It would be a great thing for ‘Chubby,’ too, for she has as much worldly wisdom as a baby, and indeed her dear father is little better. It’s no wonder I am pleased, is it, Peggy, when I think of all that this engagement means?”
Peggy looked at her wonderingly. Flushed cheeks, radiant smiles, eyes ashine with happiness, and all this pleasure at the thought of what was to happen after her own death! Twenty-one drew a breath of dismay, and cried reproachfully:
“I don’t know how you can talk so! I don’t know how you can bear to discuss such things in that complacent fashion. I won’t think of it even, but you seem quite calm about it. You can talk, and even laugh—”
“Yes!” cried Mrs Asplin quickly. “I can! I’m thankful for it. Many a time in these last few weeks, Peggy, I’ve thanked my old father for the gift of his irrepressible Irish spirit, and I’ve thanked God too, dear, that, old and weary as I am, I can still look on the bright side, and keep a cheery heart. It’s a great blessing, Peg, a wonderful blessing, for it helps not only ourselves, but those around us, over many a dismal road. You have the gift, so see that you cultivate it, child, and never let yourself imagine that you are pleasing God by going about with a gloomy face and a furnace of sighs. The world wants all the sunshine it can get, and deary me! what a pleasure it is to see a smiling face! It’s just a real help and lift on the way.”
“It’s a help to see you. I always feel better for it,” returned Peggy earnestly. There was a moment’s silence, then suddenly she clasped her hands round the other’s arm with an eager question. “Tell me, what does it feel like to be face to face with death as you are now? To live with the expectation of it with you day and night? To know for a certainty that it is near? Tell me, how does it feel?”
Mrs Asplin stood still in the middle of the path and drew a long fluttering breath. Her eyes grew rapt, and she clasped the girl’s hand in an ecstasy of emotion.
“Peggy, it’s—wonderful!” she sighed. “It is like being suddenly lifted on to a plateau and seeing life above the clouds! Everything is different, everything is altered! Things that were forgotten before seem now to fill in the whole view; things that were large and looming, seem, oh, so small, so mean and trifling! I look back, and can hardly understand how I worried myself about useless trifles—little shabbinesses about the house, upset of arrangements, clothes and food and holiday-making. When you once realise the uncertainty of life, they seem of such unutterable unimportance. And it helps one to be gentle, too, because if by chance it should happen to be the last day one had to live, how sad it would be to speak hasty words, or to leave some one sorrowing because of neglect or unkindness! It makes one long to do kind things and say cheering words, and oh, so terrified of losing an opportunity which may never come again! The doctor’s verdict was a great shock to me at first, but I am gradually coming to look upon it as one of the greatest of blessings, for it’s a hasty, impetuous creature I’ve been all my days, and this quiet waiting time is going to teach me many lessons. I ought to be grateful and happy that it has been granted me.”
Peggy bit her lips and looked at the ground. She could not trust herself to speak, but in her heart she was saying:
“And after all, she may live longer than I! Every life is uncertain. I ought to feel like that too. I ought to climb up to that high ground above the clouds. It’s because she is a Christian that she feels like that. I used always to think that very good people must be dull and gloomy, but Mrs Asplin is the happiest creature I know, and so full of fun... We used to go to her for help in all our school-day pranks, and now when she knows she is going to die, she is happy still, and quite calm and bright. I should like—oh, I should like to be good like that! One can’t always be young, and pretty, and happy, and strong; and if I am going to be a Christian at all, I want to begin now, and not wait until the troubles begin. That would feel mean! I wouldn’t treat any one on earth like that—ignore him altogether so long as everything went well, and fly to him for help the moment I was in difficulties... That awful night when Arthur told us that the doctors would not pass him for the Army, Mrs Asplin said that there were more ways than one of being a soldier, and I knew what she meant. ‘A soldier of Christ!’ I could be that as well as Arthur, and I have been longing to fight all my life... How does it go? ...
“‘Soldiers of Christ arise,
And put your armour on,
Strong in the strength which God supplies
Through His Eternal Son!’
“Oh, what a glorious army! What an honour to belong to it! I’m only a poor little recruit, but if Christ would train me—”
Peggy’s heart swelled with longing, and she clasped her hands nervously together. It was a great moment, and her wonted self-confidence failed her on this threshold of another life. The downcast fame grew so anxious and troubled that Mrs Asplin became distressed at the sight, and, as usual, took the blame upon herself.
“Dear child,” she said fondly, “I’m afraid I have oppressed you with the weight of my burdens. It seems a strange thing that I should have chosen a young thing like you as confidante, but at the time my thoughts seemed to turn naturally to you. If Esther had known how weak I was, she would have felt it her duty to give up her situation and come home, and I was most unwilling to interfere with what I then believed to be her life’s work. Mellicent would have been quite overwhelmed, poor child; and as for my boy, he would have worried himself to death, when he needs all his courage to help him through these years of waiting. But you were here, almost like a second daughter, and yet living so much apart that you would not be constantly shadowed by the remembrance, and so it came to pass that to you, dear, I opened my heart. You have been all sweetness and consideration, and for my own sake I have no regrets, but I shall be miserable if I see you depressed. No more sighs, Peggy, please! I tell you honestly, dear, that I am better in health than I was two months ago! Rest and care, and freedom from suspense, have done good work already, so don’t begin to lament too soon, for I may cheat the doctors yet. Now smile and look like yourself, for we can allow no doleful faces to-day. It is a happy day for me, for once more I have two sons to love and be proud of. There goes the bell, and we must go in to tea and to entertain the lovers. Don’t be too severe, darling, for they are very new and most amusingly self-conscious. I am sure poor dear Esther will feel it quite an ordeal to face you.”
Peggy smiled at that, as it had been intended she should, and the next moment Mellicent came flying down the path, her eyes dancing with excitement.
“They’ve come!” she cried. “They are in the schoolroom waiting for you. The professor is standing in the middle of the floor smiling into space like a china image, and Esther is horribly embarrassed. I told her that Peggy was here, and she q–quailed! Literally quailed before me. I saw her do it!”
“She may well quail!” cried Peggy meaningly. She threw back her head, peaked her brows over eyes of solemnest reproof, and marched into the house with a Mariquita stride.