CHAPTER XXII.
was fully half an hour later when Peggy crept along the passage, and took advantage of a quiet moment to slip into the room and seat herself in a sheltered corner. Quick as she was, however, somebody’s eyes were even quicker, for a tall figure stepped before her, and an aggrieved voice cried loudly—
“Well, I hope you are smart enough to satisfy yourself, now that you are ready! You have taken long enough, I must say. What about that first waltz that you promised to have with me!”
Peggy drew in her breath with a gasp of dismay.
“Oh, Rob, I am sorry! I forgot all about it. I’ve been so perturbed. Something awful has occurred. You heard about it of course——”
“No, I didn’t! What on earth—” began the boy anxiously; but so soon as he heard the two words “Rosalind’s dress!” he shrugged his shoulders in contemptuous indifference. “Oh, that! I heard something about it, but I didn’t take much notice. Spilt some ink, didn’t you? What’s the odds if you did? Accidents will happen, and she has a dozen others to choose from. I don’t see anything wrong with the dress. It looks decent enough.”
Peggy followed the direction of his eyes and caught a glimpse of Rosalind floating past on the arm of a tall soldierly youth. She was sparkling with smiles, and looking as fresh and spotless as on the moment when she had stepped across the threshold of her own room. Neither face nor dress bore any trace of the misfortune of an hour before, and Peggy heaved a sigh of relief as she watched her to and fro.
“Jolly enough, isn’t she? There’s nothing for you to fret about, you see,” said Rob consolingly. “She has forgotten all about it, and the best thing you can do is to follow her example. What would you think of some light refreshment? Let’s go to the dining-room, and drown our sorrows in strawberry ice. Then we can have a waltz, and try a vanilla,—and a polka, and some lemonade! That’s my idea of enjoying myself. Come along, while you get the chance!——”
“Oh, Rob, you are greedy!” protested Peggy; nevertheless she rose blithely enough, and her eyes began to sparkle with some of their wonted vivacity. There was something strong and re-assuring about Robert’s presence; he looked upon things in such an eminently sensible, matter-of-fact way, that one was ashamed to give way to moods and tenses in his company.
Peggy began to feel that there was still some possibility of happiness in life, and on her way to the door she came face to face with Lady Darcy, who re-assured her still further by smiling as amiably as if nothing had happened.
“Well, dear, enjoying yourself? Got plenty of partners?” Then in a whispered aside, “The dress looks all right! Such a clever suggestion of yours. Dear, dear, what a fright we had!” and she swept away, leaving an impression of beauty, grace, and affability, which the girl was powerless to resist. When Lady Darcy chose to show herself at her best, there was a charm about her which subjugated all hearts, and from the moment that the sweet tired eyes smiled into hers, Peggy Saville forgot her troubles and tripped away to eat strawberry ices, and dance over the polished floor, with a heart as light as her heels.
One party is very much like another. The room may be larger or smaller, the supper more or less substantial, but the programme is the same in both cases, and there is little to be told about even the grandest of its kind. Somebody wore pink; somebody wore blue; somebody fell down on the floor in the middle of the lancers, which are no longer the stately and dignified dance of yore, but an ungainly romp more befitting a kitchen than a ballroom; somebody went in to supper twice over, and somebody never went at all, but blushed unseen in a corner, thinking longingly of turkey, trifle, and crackers; and then the carriages began to roll up to the door, brothers and sisters paired demurely together, stammered out a bashful “Enjoyed myself so much! Thanks for a pleasant evening,” and raced upstairs for coats and shawls.
By half-past twelve all the guests had departed except the Vicarage party, and the sons and daughters of the old Squire who lived close by, who had been pressed to stay behind for that last half hour which is often the most enjoyable of the whole evening.
Lord and Lady Darcy and the grown-up visitors retired into the drawing-room to regale themselves with sandwiches and ices, and the young people stormed the supper room, interrupted the servants in their work of clearing away the good things, seated themselves indiscriminately on floor, chair, or table, and despatched a second supper with undiminished appetite. Then Esther mounted the platform where the band had been seated, and played a last waltz, and a very last waltz, and “really the last waltz of all.” The Squire’s son played a polka with two fingers, and a great deal of loud pedal, and the fun grew faster and more uproarious with every moment. Even Rosalind threw aside young lady-like affectations and pranced about without thinking of appearances, and when at last the others left the room to prepare for the drive home she seized Peggy’s arm in eager excitement.
“Peggy! Peggy! such a joke. I told them to come back to say goodbye, and I am going to play a twick! I’m going to be a ghost, and glide out from behind the shwubs, and fwighten them. I can do it beautifully. See!” She turned down the gas as she spoke, threw her light gauze skirt over her head, and came creeping across the room with stealthy tread, and arms outstretched, while Peggy clapped her hands in delight.
“Lovely! lovely! It looks exactly like wings. It makes me quite creepy. Don’t come out if Mellicent is alone whatever you do. She would be scared out of her seven senses. Just float gently along toward them, and keep your hands forward so as to hide your face. They will recognise you if you don’t.”
“Oh, if you can see my face, we must have less light. There are too many candles. I’ll put out the ones on the mantelpiece. Stay where you are and tell me when it is wight,” Rosalind cried gaily, and ran across the room on her tiny pink, silk slippers.
So long as she lived Peggy Saville remembered the next minutes; to the last day of her life she had only to shut her eyes and the scene rose up before her, clear and vivid as in a picture. The stretch of empty room, with its fragrant banks of flowers; the graceful figure flitting across the floor, its outline swathed in folds of misty white; the glimpse of a lovely, laughing face as Rosalind stretched out her arm to reach the silver candelabra, the sudden flare of light which caught the robe of gauze, and swept it into flame. It all happened within the space of a minute, but it was one of those minutes the memory of which no years can destroy. She had hardly time to realise the terror of the situation before Rosalind was rushing towards her with outstretched hands, calling aloud in accents of frenzied appeal—
“Peggy! Peggy! Oh, save me, Peggy! I’m burning! Save me! Save me!”
(To be continued.)
[THE GIRL’S OWN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.]
The Examiners report on the First Twenty-four Questions.
This competition has been taken up with enthusiasm, and such a number of carefully-prepared papers have been sent in, covering questions 1-24, that we anticipate that this will prove one of the most successful trials of ability and perseverance we have had for a long time.
It is very gratifying, for a girl who takes part in it not only gets to know a great many facts of interest, but has excellent practice in the useful art of finding out—an art which she will discover many opportunities for exercising in after life.
That the competition may prove still more serviceable, we give here a series of notes on each of the twenty-four questions sent in up to December 30th. Girls will be able in this way to make out when they answered rightly and when wrongly, and, when they did not answer at all, what they might have answered had they only known.
General remarks on the competition and on the competitors must, of course, be delayed till all the papers have been sent in and been examined.
1. Did a Queen ever voluntarily lay down the sceptre and retire into private life?
Several competitors left this query unanswered. One girl frankly declared, “I do not think that any woman, once having tasted the sweets of power, would ever give it up!” The most frequent name given erroneously was that of Lady Jane Grey, the unfortunate nine days’ queen. Those girls answered correctly who gave the remarkable abdication of Christina, Queen of Sweden, who of her own free will retired from regal business in 1654, heartily sick of the “splendid slavery of royalty.” The leading incidents of her eccentric career were well given in few words by many competitors.
2. What stone is said to endow whoever kisses it with wonderful powers of speech?
Few had any difficulty about this question, and many gave answers abounding in interesting details. The competitor who simply answered, “The Blarney Stone,” was right enough, but was quite an exception in being sparing of her words. Almost everyone knew that the stone was at Blarney Castle, near Cork. Some explained how to kiss it in the proper manner, and nobody disputed the saying that, when one’s lips have once touched it, the power of persuasive speech is sure to follow.
“There is a stone there
That whoever kisses
Oh! he never misses
To grow eloquent.”
3. How is it that, though the moon turns round on its axis, we never see the other side?
Almost everyone tried to answer this query, but a good many—especially among our younger contributors—failed; not for want of originality—oh, no!—but for want of information. One, for example, put it that it was because the earth turned round as well as the moon, another asserted that it all arose from our never seeing the moon in the daytime—“the sun’s rays are so strong then that they hide it.” The right answer is that it results from the moon turning round only once on its own axis in the same time that it takes to journey round the earth.
For the general good, let us quote an illustration given by a competitor, which makes this very clear: “Place a vase of flowers,” she says, “on a table, take up your position opposite the window, and then walk round the table, keeping your face to the flowers. When you are half-way round, you will have your back to the window; but, on reaching the starting-point, you will find you have your face to the window again. You will have turned completely round (on your axis) once yourself, and at the same time have gone round the table, yet never have shown your back to the flowers.” Now the table is the earth; you are the moon; your face stands for the moon’s shining countenance; and your back for that unknown side which the earth never sees.
4. Why is hard water very unsuitable for cooking and washing?
As was fitting with sensible girls, we had numerous and intelligent answers to this question. There was a knowing air about them. A strong case was made out against hard water—a waster of fuel, a waster of time, a waster of tea, a destroyer of the colour of vegetables, a waster of soap, an enemy to the skin. Poor hard water!
5. What celebrated work was written in a week to defray the cost of the funeral of the author’s mother?
Rather more skipped this question than gave the go-by to our first one; but nearly all who attempted an answer gave the right one. And, indeed, it is one of the familiar facts of literary history that Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote his “Rasselas” in a week for the purpose of defraying the expense of his mother’s funeral and paying some small debts she had left behind. How did one competitor make it out to be “The Task” by Cowper, and another Sir Walter Scott’s “Legend of Montrose” and “Black Dwarf”? As a curiosity we may mention that a competitor who gives an account of Dr. Johnson all right, says she has got her information from her grandfather, “who knew him.” As Johnson died a hundred and fifteen years ago, our friend must have a remarkably aged grandfather!
6. How did the thistle come to be the emblem of Scotland?
In a matter of legend we did not expect all to tell the same tale, neither did they. Most girls, however, had it that the thistle was raised to this proud position out of national gratitude, and gave the story of the Danes trying to surprise the Scots by night, when one of them set his foot on a thistle and gave such a yell that he roused the Scots, who thereupon repulsed their foes. This was a question very well answered on the whole.
7. What sea has water so thick that you can move in it with difficulty?
The greater number of competitors gave the right answer—the Dead Sea, the density of the intensely salt water of which is so great that the human body will not sink in it. A good number, however, gave the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic, the remarkable feature there being the presence of an enormous mass of gulf weed. But it is the weeds that are thick there, not the water, and we said, “water so thick.” In the same way the girls who mentioned the Arctic Sea because of the ice should have taken note that we did not speak about “ice so thick.”
8. What are the characteristics of the music of Chopin?
Music being a girl’s subject, we naturally looked for good answers to this question. Good they were, the marked features of the music of this “bold and proud poetic spirit” being well indicated—his romance and sentiment, his refined harmony, his care to avoid commonplaces, his triumphs in the technical treatment of the pianoforte, and many other points illustrating how, as someone says, “he spoke of new things well worth hearing and found new ways of saying such things.”
9. Who is the greatest poetess the world has ever seen?
There was room here for differences of opinion. Sappho, Mrs. Browning, Vittoria Colonna, Christina Rossetti, Jean Ingelow and Mrs. Hemans all found advocates, but the majority said Sappho, whilst Mrs. Browning made a good second. Certainly, Sappho, “the tenth muse,” has the advantage in world-wide fame. To quote a sensible competitor, “Perhaps the dimness of distant ages clinging to her and her poetry spread a romantic glamour over her works; still, duly considering all these points, we, though hesitatingly, concede the palm to Sappho.”
10. How is a rainbow a sign of bad weather in the morning, and a sign of good weather in the evening?
One of the last papers we looked at ventured on the assertion that this is a “popular delusion.” However, almost all our competitors were on the other side and gave reasons for the fact. It was a query that had been taken pains over. The reasons, it should be added, were in some cases not very firmly grasped, so it may be useful to everybody—the “popular delusion” competitor included—if we quote the following from the “Salmonia” of Sir Humphry Davy:—
“A rainbow can only occur when the clouds containing or depositing the rain are opposite to the sun; and in the evening the rainbow is in the east and in the morning in the west; and as our heavy rains in this climate are usually brought by the westerly wind, a rainbow in the west indicates that the bad weather is on the road by the wind to us; whereas the rainbow in the east proves that the rain in these clouds is passing from us.”
11. Has a besieged town ever been saved by a pig?
This was a stumbling-block. We are within the mark in saying that a hundred and fifty competitors did not answer at all. A good many others answered wrongly, and one girl frankly denied that such an incident ever took place. “A besieged town,” she says, “never has been saved by a pig.” The pig story we had in view in framing the question was connected with Taunton. When that town was besieged during the Civil War, the garrison of the Castle were at last reduced to a single pig. “As, however, they wished to persuade the besiegers that they were well off for provisions, they drove the solitary and unfortunate animal round the ramparts, pricking it occasionally to make it squeal. The enemy soon retired, naturally thinking there was no chance of starving out a garrison who had such an unlimited supply of bacon.”
Another pig story was given by several competitors, connected with the siege of Rennes in Brittany by the English about the middle of the fourteenth century. In this case a pig was used to decoy into the besieged town, that they might serve as food for the famished inhabitants, a large herd of swine, regarding which the English foe had quite other intentions.
12. How fast can an expert penman write?
Many good answers were given to this question, the best being those in which girls, not satisfied with information derived from books, showed they had experimented for themselves. “I wrote the so-many words of this answer in so-long,” was a reply of the right sort, especially when the handwriting looked like that of an expert, and the rest of the information like that of a girl of sense. Forty words a minute seemed to be considered a good pace, but it could not be kept up for long. A great deal of dexterity, not to say perseverance, would be needed to write by the hour at a faster rate than about twenty-six words in a minute. It is different, of course, with shorthand, by means of which expert writers can write legibly as fast as anyone can speak.
13. When did the pianoforte first come into use?
The number who did not attempt answering this question was so small as to be not worth speaking about. Girls found out that, whilst the subject was a little obscure, it was generally agreed that Bartolommeo Cristofori, a harpsichord maker of Padua, was the man of genius who invented and produced the pianoforte in the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was not, however, until the present century began that the use of the instrument became at all general.
14. What is the most polite nation in the world?
Almost everybody had something to say on this question, to which many answers were possible, depending on what one thought true politeness. Most gave the first place to the French, whilst a few named the Italians and the Spanish. Of people farther a-field the Chinese and the Japanese got the preference with some, especially the Japanese. There were reasons given for the choice in many instances, and some philosophy was occasionally thrown in, as when a girl added a good word for the comparatively blunt and unpolished ways of John Bull: “A rough exterior with a true heart beneath it,” she says, “being better than a veneer of politeness without any depth.”
15. What is the nearest star to the earth?
This is the sun, regarding which we may quote from Mr. J. Norman Lockyer. “The sun is a star, bigger and brighter than the other stars, not because it is unlike them but simply because it is so near us.” A good many gave what was equivalent to this answer but more did not. There was a confusion too in some minds between stars, planets, and satellites, which led competitors into mistakes that would have otherwise been avoided. But let not those who went outside our solar system and said Alpha Centauri concern themselves; it was, in its way, a good answer, though the distance of α Centauri exceeds our sun’s distance 230,000 times!
16. What philosopher of antiquity married a shrew?
This poor unfortunate man, nearly all seemed to know, was Socrates, not the worst part of whose wisdom was shown in the patience with which he endured the temper of his wife Xanthippe. But we would like to know why after being asked about an ancient philosopher one girl gave as an example, Richard Hooker, the theologian, who was not ancient; and another, Ben Jonson, the dramatist, who was not ancient either; and a third, James Ferguson, the astronomer, who died little more than a century ago.
17. What flower in the middle of the seventeenth century became the subject of a popular mania?
No, it was not the white rose, or the orange-lily, or the tobacco plant, or the hyacinth, as some competitors had it; it was the tulip. Whilst the tulipomania lasted—and it was specially prevalent in Holland—quite fabulous prices were paid for bulbs. But it was really, as one girl points out, a form of gambling in which admiration of the flower and interest in its culture were very secondary matters. Many correct replies were received to this question.
18. Which is the best soil on which to build a house?
This drew forth many sensible replies, indicating that girls fully realised that the soil must be a good one, dry and wholesome, or the house built on it cannot be healthy. Sometimes a girl inserted a bit of local colour; a girl, for example, writing from Worcestershire, whilst praising gravel as forming the best soil on which to build, says that in her county, what is locally called “cat’s brain” is preferred to pure gravel—cat’s brain being a mixture of gravel and a little loam.
19. Did anyone ever swim across the Channel from England to France?
Here was an easy question. Girls apparently had found little difficulty in learning all about Captain Webb, who in August, 1875, performed the marvellous feat of swimming across the Channel without once touching a boat or artificial support of any kind.
20. What great lady once, in a temper, cut off her long and beautiful hair and flung it in her husband’s face?
This query was a puzzler. Even more failed to answer it than failed to reply to our number eleven. The lady in question was the famous Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, at one time friend and favourite of Queen Anne. Many girls who gave a correct answer referred as their source of information to The Girl’s Own Paper, an article on that extraordinary, eccentric and imperious woman having appeared in our pages several years ago.
21. What is the origin of the name foolscap as applied to paper of a certain size?
There was room here for several different statements. According to some, what is now known as foolscap, had before the Commonwealth time the watermark of a King’s crown, but Cromwell, to show his dislike to everything connected with royalty, directed a fool’s cap to be put in place of the crown. Others had it that Charles II. was the first to give it the name of foolscap, the cap put on by Cromwell being intended by the Protector to represent a Cap of Liberty. One legend is good till another legend is told.
22. Have flowers ever been used as time-keepers?
This called forth answers packed with information, few girls failing to say something on the subject. Many showed that it is quite possible to so arrange flowers in a garden that approximately all the purposes of a clock will be answered. One pointed out that as long ago as the time of Pliny forty-six flowers were known to open and shut at certain hours of the day, and that this number has since been largely increased.
23. What famous relic of antiquity on its way to this country nearly found its last resting-place at the bottom of the sea?
Well answered, nearly everybody! Yes, the relic was the famous Cleopatra’s Needle, now standing on the Thames Embankment, which, when being brought from Alexandria in the latter part of 1877 to England, was nearly lost in a terrific storm.
24. Who was the famous carrier who gave rise to a proverb by always making his customers take the horse nearest the stable door?
About twenty per cent. of our competitors failed to find out that this was Thomas Hobson of Cambridge, the celebrated University carrier who died in 1630-1, and who had the honour of two epitaphs written upon him by Milton. In Addison’s Spectator, No. 509, “Tobias” is given instead of “Thomas.”