II
Miss Margaret Donohoe—popularly known in the regiment as “Peggy,� and, as it will be remembered, betrothed to Private Dancey Juxon, V. C.—Miss Margaret Donohoe was not summoned to the bedside of her hitherto-reputed father in time to hear from his own lips the secret of her birth. She was trimming an old hat with new crape for mourning exigencies, the day after the Sergeant had been consigned with the usual military honors to the Catholic division of the cemetery, when heavy footsteps sounded in the flagged passage of the Married Quarters, and the Colonel and the Senior Major, both visibly disturbed, walked into Donohoe’s clean sanded kitchen, and, in as few words as possible, broke the news.
“It’s a terrible shock to you, my poor girl—as it has been to me!� said the Major, very white about the gills. “And to—to another I needn’t name!� He was thinking of his Emmie, and how piteously she had sobbed last night and hung about his neck, with her pretty hair all coming down over his mess waistcoat, as she begged him not to send her away from him, because it wasn’t her fault that she had turned out to be Donohoe’s daughter and not his own; and how at that moment she was breaking the news to Garthside—that Junior Captain and Victoria Cross hero to whom, it will be remembered, she was engaged. Poor Emmie, poor darling Emmie!—or Peggy, as she ought now to be called! Major Rufford felt that he never would be able to do it. “But—I’ll try and do my duty to you as your father should, and—I must look to you to—to do as much by me!� he concluded lamely.
“Oh, Major!� cried Peggy—Peggy with the hard, bright, black eyes, the red lips, the tip-tilted nose, the Milesian upper lip, and the coarse but plenteous mane of dark brown hair liberally “banged� in front and arranged behind in massive rope coils, secured by hairpins of imitation tortoiseshell as long as the farrier’s pincers. “Oh, Major! can you ax it? Sure I’ll thrate you as dacent as ever I did him that’s gone, an’ the Colonel hears me say it!...�
She checked the inclination to weep for one who was, all said and done, no relation, and put her crackling six-penny-three-farthings black-bordered handkerchief back in her pocket with an air of resolution. A flood of new ideas inundated her brain. All that she had ever dreamed of in the way of the unattainable lay hence-forth within her reach, and everything that had hitherto appeared most desirable and possible was from this bewildering hour rendered impossible. Her eyes fell on Private Dancey Juxon, V. C., who had been sitting on the kitchen table when the tall shadow of Sir Alured fell upon the sanded floor, and who had remained, from that moment until this, petrified in an attitude of military respect, against the whitewashed wall; and she realized that Dancey—Dancey, the Adonis of the rank and file, the hero once desired above all others, wrested at the expense of the most costly and variegated hats and the most dazzling toilettes from the clutches of how many other women!—Dancey must now be numbered among the impossibles. If a cold dash of regret mingled with the inward exultation of Miss Peggy, it was excusable.
“Sure, the dear knows! ’Tis like a tale out av the Pinny Romancir,� she said, “an’ troth it’s no wondher av my breath was tuk away wid the surprise. To think of that bould craythur, Donohoe’s wife!——�
“Do you mean your mother, my girl?� began the Colonel, but Peggy gave Sir Alured a look that put him in his place.
“I mane the woman that changed me in me cradle, bad cess to her for a thrickster!� said Peggy, “an’ put her own sojer’s brat in the place av me—me that belonged to the Quality by rights. Not that I’m not pityin’ Miss Emmeline—now that she’s Peggy Donohoe, a poor craythur sprung from nothin’.� The Major turned a groan into a cough, and the Colonel hauled at the ends of his huge white moustache, but the tide of Peggy’s brogue was not to be stemmed. “It’ll be a change for her, it will so, afther livin’ on the fat av the land—an orphan’s pinsion to find her in stirabout, an’ never a chick nor a child in the woide wurruld but her ould Aunt Biddy Kinsella!�
“Who—haw!—is Biddy Kinsella?� broke in the Colonel.
“Av’ she’s alive—an’ a bag av dhry bones she must be av she is,� says Peggy—“it’s at Carricknaclee, in Aher, you may find her. She used to live wid her niece—manin’ Mrs. Donohoe—an’ she wint back to Ireland whin me mother died—manin’ Mrs. Donohoe agin—a matter av eight years ago. An’ ’tis natural Donohoe’s daughter would call her to mind at a time like this. Maybe the young woman would go to live wid her,� continued Miss Peggy calmly. “An’ that brings to me own mind, Major—I mane Papa—whin do ye want me to come home?�
“Home! Oh, Lord!� said the poor Major, before he could stop himself.
“Dee-d cool!� growled Sir Alured, under the huge moustache, squeezing the Major’s arm with his great, gaunt, brown hand. “But she’s got the right—got the right, Rufford, you know, don’t you know. Ha—hum!�
“You shall hear from me soon—very soon, Peggy,� said the Major brokenly. “Good-bye for now, my girl.� He took her coarse red hand, so unlike his Emmie’s, and kissed her equally red cheek; and as he did so the petrified Juxon recovered the temporarily suspended powers of speech and motion, stepped forward, and saluted.
“Beg pardon, gentlemen,� he began, “and pre-’aps I oughtn’t to take the freedom; but ’avin’ over’eard....�
“Saw you, Juxon! Knew you were there! Thought you had a right to hear, you know, don’t you know!� said Sir Alured.
But a shrill feminine note of indignation pierced the Colonel’s bass, as Miss Peggy cried, “Right! I’d be glad you’d tell me what right you have, Misther Dancey Juxon, to be afther pokin’ the nose av you into business that doesn’t consarn you, let alone the privit affairs av an officer’s daughther. Away wid you, an’ larn your place! your room’s more welcome than your company; an’ if it’s a wife you’re lookin’ afther, maybe when wan av thim that’s av your own station stands up before the priest wid you, I’ll be making you a little prisint toward the housekeepin’, av the young woman’s dacent an’ respictable!�
And the bewildered Juxon found himself outside the black-painted door—marked III. in large white numerals—in the character of a lover dismissed.
“Well, I’m blowed!� he said, and said no more, but clinked away in search of the Lethean streams of the canteen.
“Rufford,� said Sir Alured solemnly, as the Chief and the second in command exchanged the atmosphere of coals and potato peels prevailing in the Married Quarters for the open air of the barrack square, “I’m confoundedly afraid she’s a Tartar! Sharp as a needle, sir, and knowing as a pet fox, if you ask me!�
And the Major said in reply, “These things are supposed to be hereditary. I wonder where she gets it from!� Then he broke out, “I can’t believe it, Colonel! I couldn’t, if fifty dying men had taken an oath to it. That my poor Clara’s girl! It’s impossible! If an angel were to come down from Headquarters Above, with despatches confirming the report, I couldn’t credit it!�
“And dee-d if I should blame you,� the Chief responded. “Breed’s bound to show, somewhere, and there’s not a drop of good blood in the girl’s veins, I’ll swear!�
“There’s an Irish strain in my family, too,� said poor Rufford despondently, “and my Emmie has brown hair and eyes; and her nose, bless it! is a little tilted at the end.�
“A nay retroussy. So it is, by George! But there are noses and noses, y’know,� said Sir Alured. “And Emmie’s a Rufford, from the crown of her head to the ends of her toes; and we’ll prove it, we’ll prove it, sir! Donohoe hasn’t a leg to stand on�—which was true—“and as to that Mullingar heifer�—thus the Chief designated Peggy—“she’ll be sorry one day for throwing Juxon over, mark my words. Send for that old aunt of Donohoe’s dead wife—the bag of bones Peggy talked of—and pump her for all she’s worth. Turn her inside out!—it’s the only advice I can give you, for my head’s in as dee-d a muddle as yours. And remember, whatever happens, my Lady is staunch to Emmie! Game woman, my Lady. Doesn’t care a dee what society says, as long as—— God bless me, Rufford! I’m talkin’ as though Emmie wasn’t your daughter. But the whole thing’s infernally confusin’, you know, don’t you know!�
An opinion in which the regiment concurred. An excited beehive would have furnished but a poor comparison to the barracks upon the morrow, when Peggy’s great news, imparted in ostentatious secrecy to Mrs. Quartermaster Casey and a few other non-commissioned officers’ ladies, had percolated through them. Visitors thronged the Donohoes’ quarters; Peggy was the heroine of the hour. Press reporters from the town hung about the barracks on the chance of seeing either of the heroines of what was termed in the local paper “An Extraordinary Romance in Real Life,� and the officers’ wives called in a body to condole with Emmie Rufford, who, as we have heard, had broken off her engagement with Captain Gerry Garthside.
“I shall not break my heart over things,� she had said, with an attempt at being everyday and common-sensible that was plucky, if not convincing, “and I hope you won’t dwell too much upon the collapse of our house of cards. I hope—I pray you’ll build more solidly, with—with somebody else. Don’t, Gerry! Oh, don’t! It’s not fair to make my duty harder to do than——�
Then Emmie had broken down, wept wildly, been kissed, consoled, and assured of her lover’s undying love and eternal fidelity. Part? Never! Lose such a pearl of a wife! Not for all the Donohoes past, present, or to come! I believe, in spite of Emmie’s woe and Captain Gerry Garthside’s agitation, the young people secretly enjoyed the scene dramatic; and when Lady Alured came rustling in, about the time when Gerry’s eloquence attained its utmost pitch of fervor, and hugged and cried over the hero and heroine of the little drama, that dear woman was not the least happy of the three.
And later on, after returning to quarters, Captain Garthside found a letter on his doormat. The contents of the soiled envelope, directed in a sprawling hand, ran as follows:
“Door No. 3, Ground floor, Block Q.
“Miss E. Rufford presents comps And wold be Glad to see Cap Garthside & if Yu will call at 2 remane
“Your Oblidged
“E. Ruffor�
Of course the Captain knew Peggy Donohoe; had danced with her at non-commissioned officers’ balls; given her gloves and chocolates, and sipped the roses of her cheek in common with many another passing admirer. “And who’d be the worse of a kiss,� as Peggy would have said, “from a dacent girl?� “Dacent� she undoubtedly was, if not from pure innate virtue, perhaps from the consciousness that a depreciation in marketable value attaches to goods that have been soiled by handling. Had it been otherwise, the state of Major Rufford had been less gracious, thought Captain Gerry Garthside.
And he looked at Emmie’s photograph standing in a silver frame upon his mantelshelf, and remembered the piteous smile with which she had told him that everything must now be over between them, and mentally renewed his vows of fealty before he went round to “look up Peggy.�
The rooms occupied by the late Sergeant Donohoe were three—a kitchen and two bedchambers. One of these latter, Peggy, with the assistance of Mrs. Quartermaster Casey, a dozen yards of cheap Liberty muslin, a gross of Japanese fans, one or two pieces of Oriental drapery, and a few articles of furniture of the tottery bamboo kind, had converted for the time being into a boudoir. Only for the time being, she said to herself, because when she got her rights she would enjoy all the splendors now usurped by the real Peggy Donohoe—Miss Emmie, as she called the usurper when she forgot, which was not often. She would dress for dinner every evening, and attend balls and theaters in low-necked, long-trained frocks, chaperoned by Lady Alured, adorned with the late Mrs. Rufford’s diamond stars, and attended by Captain Gerry Garthside, V. C. For not one, but all the possessions held and prerogatives hitherto enjoyed by the false Miss Rufford would naturally devolve to the real one, once formally recognized and received by her papa and the regiment; the “ould duds� and bits of sticks once pertaining to the supposed Margaret Donohoe being transferred to the veritable Peggy, together with all rights in Private Dancey Juxon, V. C. The topsy-turvy, comic-operatic whimsicality of her own idea did not appeal to Peggy’s sense of humor. She was very much in earnest as she waited for her visitor, seated in state upon one of her own ornamental chairs, her red hands—hands which could not be transferred to the real Peggy Donohoe with the other things—folded in her lap.
“She’s here, Captain,� Mrs. Quartermaster Casey—retained as chaperon until Lady Alured should awaken to a sense of her duties—had said, opening the door.
“Oh, Captain,� said Peggy, rising coyly, “is it yourself?�
And, owning the soft impeachment as he squeezed the red hand (Gerry Garthside’s manners to the plainest woman were fatally caressing), the Captain inquired how he could serve her.
“Sure,� said Peggy, making play with her fine eyes, “you’ll maybe thinking me forward, Captain, for makin’ the first sign. But me papa—the Major—will be takin’ up a great dale of me toime by-an’-by, and wid Mrs. Casey sittin’ in the kitchen widin call, we’re givin’ no handle to the tongue of scandal, as the sayin’ is——�
“My dear Miss Peggy!—� the Captain was beginning, when Peggy took him up short.
“I’ll trouble you,� she said, “to remimber that I’m not takin’ any more Peggy from anywan, high or low, an’ I’d be glad it was ginerally known. ‘Miss Emmeline,’ or ‘Emmie’ for short, you’re free to use, or any pet name ye may pick.� She cast a languishing glance upon Captain Gerry. “I’m not likely to quarrel wid it�—she moved nearer—“or wid you. Och, thin! but ’tis quare how things have turned round wid me! Peggy Donohoe a week ago, an’ walkin’ out wid Dancey Juxon—an’ now—the Major’s daughter, an’ your promised bride, Captain jewel! Sure ’tis like a dhrame, it is!�
And Peggy rested her rather large head upon the shoulder of the astonished Captain, who hastily withdrew the support.
“Look here, Peggy, my girl!� he said hastily. “What’s this notion you’ve got into your noddle? You don’t think....�
“I think that you’re a gintleman, Captain,� said Peggy, with a tender smile, “and would never go back on the promise you gev to the Major’s daughter. An’ now that I’m her, an’ she’s me, you’ll do your duty by me, as Dancey Juxon will do his to Donohoe’s poor unfortunate girl. You may thrust him. We’ve had it out betune us, an’ he’s with her now.�
“With—her—now?� repeated the bewildered Captain.
“I sent him to the Major’s—I mane papa’s—quarters ten minnits ago, wid a flea in his ear!� said Peggy, folding her red hands about the elbow of her captive, and rubbing her cheek against his shoulder strap. “‘I dar’ you,’ sez I, ‘to hang about here,’ sez I, ‘makin’ sheep’s eyes at a daughter av the Quality, whin that poor crayture you gev your promise to is cryin’ her two eyes out for the gliff av a glimpse av your red head. Away wid you,’ sez I, ‘an’ prove yourself a man av your word, Dancey Juxon, or maybe Peggy Donohoe’ll be takin’ the law av you wan av these fine days!’�
“My good girl,� said Gerry Garthside, almost pleadingly, “you can’t really believe what you say you’ve told Juxon—that he is obliged to marry Miss Rufford, or the lady who has borne that name until now, because he happens to have given a promise of marriage to Peggy Donohoe, and Miss Rufford and Peggy have changed places?�
“I mane that!� Peggy’s black eyes snapped out sparks of fire; as she tossed her head, a loosened coil of black hair tumbled upon her shoulder. Her fine bust heaved, her cheeks burned scarlet—she had never looked finer in her life. “Do I not mane just that? Think! Isn’t her father mine? Isn’t her home my home?—the dhress she wears upon her back mine?—the ring she has upon the finger av her mine? Ah, musha, an’ the man that put it there!� Her grasp on Captain Gerry’s arm tightened, her eyes sought his and held his; her warm, fragrant breath came and went about his face like a personal caress. “Sure, dear, you’ll not regret ut,� said Peggy, “for I loved you iver since I clapped my two eyes on you—I take the Blessed Saints to witness! An’ Dancey Juxon’ll be dacent to Donohoe’s daughter, an’ you an’ me will be afther lendin’ the young couple a hand, lettin’ her have the washin’ maybe, or the waitin’ at our table—or by-an’-by�—she lowered her black lashes—“she might come as nurse to the children. So, darlin’....�
The sentence was never finished, for the alarmed Captain broke from the toils and fled. The Mess story goes that he double-locked his outer door, barricaded the inner one with a chest of drawers and a portable tin shower bath, and spent the rest of the day in reconnoitering from behind the window curtains in anticipation of a descent of the enemy. But in reality he bent his steps toward the North Quadrangle, where the Major’s quarters were, and over the familiar blue crockery window boxes full of daffodils, he caught a glimpse of Emmie’s sweet face, not pale or bearing marks of secretly shed tears as when he last kissed it, but bright-eyed, flushed, and dimpling with laughter as she nodded and waved her hand to a departing visitor, who, absorbed in the charming vision, glimpsed above the daffodils, collided with and cannoned off the Captain.
“Hullo! You, Juxon?�
“Beg pardon, sir,� said Private Juxon, rigidly at the salute. “I ’ope I ’aven’t ’urt you!� He grinned happily.
“Have you come into a fortune, or inherited a title? You look pretty chirpy!� said the Captain.
“Not a bad ’it of ’is by ’arf,� said Private Juxon critically to Private Juxon, “about the comin’ into a title. ‘For,’ says she, ‘the greatest gentleman in the land couldn’t ’ave done more—and though I can’t accept your offer, I shall always look up to you and respect you as the most chivalrousest and honorablest man I ever met!’ Wot price me, after that?�
For, as may be guessed, Private Juxon had proposed, and been rejected. Standing very stiff and red and upright on the passage door mat, he had confessed his sense of responsibility and explained his views.
“The general run of feelin’ in the regiment bein’ the same, Miss, as her own, that I’m bound as a man to keep my promise to Peggy Donohoe, whether she’s you or you are ’er. I’ve took the freedom of callin’ to say as wot I’m ready,� said Juxon. “An’ the weddin’ was to come off in June; but you’ve only got to name an earlier day, Miss, an’ I’ll ’ave the banns put up, you not bein’ a Catholic, like Peggy—which I ought to call ’er Miss Rufford now, as owing to ’er station, Miss. But if you think I’ll ever come short in duty an’ respect to the Major’s daughter, because she’s turned out to be only the Sergeant’s, you’re wrong, Miss, you’re wrong—upon my bloo——upon my ’tarnal soul!�
And then it was that Emmie Rufford conferred upon Private Juxon the title of nobility, which made him a proud man—and unconditionally refused his offer, making him a happy one.
She is now married to Captain Gerry Garthside, who yet fulfilled his engagement to the Senior Major’s daughter in leading her to the altar. For within a week the bubble had burst, topsy-turvydom reigned no more, the barracks ceased to seethe like one of its own mess cauldrons, and Peggy Donohoe was compelled to relinquish the privilege of calling Major Rufford “Papa.� For old Aunt Biddy Kinsella had been discovered in the smokiest corner of her grandson’s cottage at Carricknaclee, in Aher, by a smart young solicitor’s clerk; and her sworn deposition, duly marked with her cross and attested by her parish priest, dispersed the clouds of doubt from the Major’s horizon, relieved Sir Alured’s moustache from an unusual strain, and proved the deceased Mrs. Donohoe to have been the victim of a delusion.
“For ’twas at Buttevant Barracks where the regiment was stationed nineteen years ago, an’ me stayin’ on a visit wid me niece, that I saw her—Maggie Donohoe—rest her unaisy soul, the misfortnit craythur!—I saw her change the children’s clothes wid the two eyes I have in my head,� said Aunt Biddy Kinsella, “barrin’ that only wan av thim was at the keyhole. ‘Och, murdher!’ sez I, lettin’ a screech an’ flyin’ in on her—for I had the use av me legs in thim days—‘what have you done, woman, asthore?’ ‘Made a lady av little Peggy,’ says she, wid the fingers av her hooked like claws ready to fly at me, ‘an’ I dar’ you to bethray me.’ ‘Bethray!’ sez I. ‘It’s bethrayed her to the divil, you mane—that she’ll be brought up a black Prodesdan’, and not a dacent Catholic, as a Donohoe should be by rights.’ ‘Holy Virgin, forgive me! Sure, I never thought av that!’ sez herself, and all thrimblin’ we undhressed the children an’ changed the clothes again. An’ a day or so afther the Major’s baby was waned an’ wint back to uts mother. But Maggie Donohoe was niver the same in her mind afther that day. Sit an’ brood she would, an’ hour by hour; an’ creep out av her own bed an’ into mine night afther night, and wake me wid her cowld hand upon me mouth an’ the whisper in me ear to know had she given little Peggy’s sowl to the divil or changed the childhren back afther all! An’ as years wint on she kem to a quieter mind, but on her dyin’ bed the ould fear and thrimblin’ got hould av her ag’in, an’ she tould Donohoe—not what she’d done at all, at all!—but what she wanst had the intintion av doin’, but that her heart failed her; an’ so made a fool av the man that owned her, as many another woman has done before!�
Thus Aunt Biddy Kinsella, who, having spoken, may be dismissed to her smoky corner under the turf thatch, where a greasy parcel reached her in the middle of the following June, containing, not an olive branch, but a concrete slab of wedding cake, with the joint compliments of Mr. and Mrs. Dancey Juxon. For “the general run of feelin’ in the regiment� was in favor of Private Juxon’s renewing his matrimonial engagements to Peggy Donohoe, now that she had been proved, past all doubt, to be herself. And by the last advices received from headquarters it appears that Mrs. Lance-Corporal Juxon is acting at this moment as nurse to the Garthside baby.