CHAPTER XXVI.
few days later Peggy was driven home to the vicarage, and stood the drive so well that she was able to walk downstairs at tea-time and sit at the table with only a cushion at her back to mark her out as an invalid just recovering from a serious illness. There was a special reason why she wished to look well this afternoon, for Arthur was expected by the six o’clock train; and the candidate who had come out first in his examination lists must not have his reception chilled by anxiety or disappointment.
Peggy was attired in her pink dress, and sat roasting before the fire so as to get some colour into her cheeks. If her face were only the size of the palm of a hand, she was determined that it should at least be rosy; and if she looked very bright, and smiled all the time, perhaps Arthur would not notice how thin she had become.
When half-past six struck, everyone crowded into the school-room, and presently a cab drove up to the door, and a modest rap sounded on the knocker.
“That’s not Arthur!” cried Mrs. Asplin confidently. “He knocks straight on without stopping, peals the bell at the same time, and shouts Christmas carols through the letter-box! He has sent on his luggage, I expect, and is going to pounce in upon us later on.”
“Ah, no, that’s not Arthur!” assented Peggy; but Mr. Asplin turned his head quickly towards the door, as if his ear had caught a familiar note, hesitated for a moment, and then walked quickly into the hall.
“My dear boy!” the listeners heard him cry, and then another voice spoke in reply—Arthur’s voice—saying, “How do you do, sir?” in such flat, subdued tones as filled them with amazement.
Mrs. Asplin and Peggy turned towards each other with distended eyes. If Arthur had suddenly slid down the chimney and crawled out on the hearth before them, turned a somersault in at the window, or crawled from beneath the table, it would have caused no astonishment whatever; but that he should knock at the door, walk quietly into the hall, and wait to hang up his hat like any other ordinary mortal—this was indeed an unprecedented and extraordinary proceeding! The same explanation darted into both minds. His sister’s illness! He was afraid of startling an invalid, and was curbing his overflowing spirits in consideration for her weakness.
Peggy rose from her chair, and stood waiting, with sparkling eyes and burning cheeks. He should see in one glance that she was better—almost well—that there was no need of anxiety on her behalf. And then the tall, handsome figure appeared in the doorway, and Arthur’s voice cried—
“Peggikens! Up and dressed! This is better than I hoped. How are you, dear little Peg?”
There was something wrong with the voice, something lacking in the smile; but his sister was too excited to notice it. She stretched out her arms towards him, and raised her weak, quavering, little voice in a song of triumph.
“See—ee the conquering he—he—he—he—hero com—ums!
Sow—ow—ow—ow—ownd the trumpet, play—a—a—a——”
“Don’t, Peg!” cried Arthur sharply. “Don’t, dear!” He was standing by her side by this time, and suddenly he wrapped his arms round her and laid his curly head on hers. “I’m plucked, Peg!” he cried, and his voice was full of tears. “Oh, Peg, I’m plucked! It’s all over; I can never be a soldier. I’m plucked—plucked—plucked!”
“Arthur dear! Arthur darling!” cried Peggy loudly. She clasped her arms round his neck, and glared over his shoulder, like a tigress whose young has been threatened with danger. “You plucked! My brother plucked! Ho! ho! ho!” She gave a shrill peal of laughter. “It’s impossible! You were first of all, the very first. You always are first. Who was wicked enough, and cruel enough, and false enough to say that Arthur Saville was plucked in an examination?”
“Arthur, my boy, what is it? What does it mean? You told us you were first. How can you possibly be plucked?”
“My—my eyes!” said Arthur faintly. He raised his head from Peggy’s shoulder and looked round with a haggard smile. “The medical exam. They would not pass me. I was rather blind when I was here before, but I thought it was with reading too much. I never suspected there was anything really wrong—never for a moment!”
“Your eyes!” The Vicar pressed his hand to his forehead, as if unable to grasp this sudden shattering of his hopes. “But—but I don’t understand! Your eyes never gave you any trouble when you were here. You were not short-sighted. One knew, of course, that good sight was necessary; but there seemed no weakness in that direction. I can’t imagine any cause that can have brought it on.”
“I can!” said Arthur drearily. “I got a bad knock at lacrosse a year ago. I didn’t tell you about it, for it wasn’t worth while; but my eyes were bad for some time after that. I thought they were all right again; but I had to read a lot of things across a room, and made a poor show of it. Then the doctor took me to a window and pointed to an omnibus that was passing.
“‘What’s the name on that ’bus?’ he said. ‘What is the colour of that woman’s hat? How many horses are there?’
“I guessed. I couldn’t see. I made a shot at it, and it was a wrong shot. He was a kind old chap. I think he was sorry for me. I—I came out into the street, and walked about. It was very cold. I tried to write to you, but I couldn’t do it—I couldn’t put it down in black and white. No V.C. now, little Peg! That’s all over. You will have a civilian for your brother, after all!”
He bent down to kiss the girl’s cheeks as he spoke, and she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him passionately upon his closed eyelids.
“Dear eyes!” she cried impetuously. “Oh, dear eyes! They are the dearest eyes in all the world, whatever anyone says about them. It doesn’t matter what you are—you are my Arthur, the best and cleverest brother in all the world. Nobody is like you!”
“You have a fine career before you still, my boy! You will always fight, I hope, and conquer enemies even more powerful than armed men!” cried Mrs. Asplin, trembling. “There are more ways than one of being a soldier, Arthur!”
“I know it, mater,” said the young man softly. He straightened his back and stood in silence, his head thrown back, his eyes shining with emotion, as fine a specimen of a young English gentleman as one could wish to meet. “I know it,” he repeated, and Mrs. Asplin turned aside to hide her tears. “Oh, my pretty boy!” she was saying to herself. “Oh, my pretty boy! And I’ll never see him in his red coat, riding his horse like a prince among them all! I’ll never see the medals on his breast! Oh, my poor lad that has the fighting blood in his veins! It’s like tearing the heart out of him to turn Arthur Saville into anything but a soldier. And the poor father—what will he say at all when he hears this terrible news?” She dared not trust herself to speak again, the others were too much stunned and distressed to make any attempt at consolation, and it was a relief to all when Mellicent’s calm, matter-of-fact treble broke the silence.
“Well, for my part, I’m very glad!” she announced slowly. “I’m sorry, of course, if he has to wear spectacles, because they are unbecoming, but I’m thankful he is not going to be a soldier. I think it’s silly having nothing to do but drill in barracks, and pretending to fight when there is no one to fight with. I should hate to be a soldier in times of peace, and it would be fifty thousand times worse in war. Oh, my goodness, shouldn’t I be in a fright! I should run away, I know I should; but Arthur would be in the front of every battle, and it’s absurd to think that he would not get killed. You know what Arthur is! Did you ever know him have a chance of hurting himself and not taking it? He would be killed in the very first battle—that’s my belief—and then you would be sorry that you wanted him to be a soldier! Or, if he wasn’t killed, he would have his legs shot off. Last time I was in London I saw a man with no legs. He was sitting on a little board with wheels on it, and selling matches in the street. Well, I must say I’d rather have my brother a civilian, as you call it, than have no legs, or be cut in pieces by a lot of nasty, naked old savages!”
A general smile went round the company. There was no resisting it. Even Arthur’s face brightened, and he turned his head and looked at Mellicent with his old twinkling smile.
“Bravo, Chubby!” he cried. “Bravo, Chubby! Commend me to Mellicent for good, sound common-sense. The prospect of squatting on a board, selling matches, is not exhilarating, I must confess. I’m glad there is one person at least who thinks my prospects are improved.” He gave a little sigh, which was stifled with praiseworthy quickness. “Well, the worst is over now that I have told you and written the letter to India. Those were the two things that I dreaded most. Now I shall just have to face life afresh, and see what can be made of it. I must have a talk with you, sir, later on, and get your advice. Cheer up, Peggikins! Cheer up, mater! It’s no use grieving over spilt milk, and Christmas is coming. It would never do to be in the dolefuls over Christmas! I’ve got a boxful of presents upstairs—amused myself with buying them yesterday to pass the time. You come up with me to-night, Peg, and I’ll give you a peep. You look better than I expected, dear, but fearsome scraggy! We shall have to pad her out a bit, sha’n’t we, mater? She must have an extra helping of plum pudding this year.”
He rattled on in his own bright style, or in as near an imitation of it as he could manage, and the others tried their best to follow his example, and make the evening as cheery as possible. Once or twice the joy of being all together again in health and strength conquered the underlying sorrow, and the laughter rang out as gayly as ever, but the next moment Arthur would draw in his breath with another of those short, stabbing sighs, and Peggy would shiver, and lie back trembling among her pillows. She had no heart to look at Christmas presents that night, but Arthur carried her upstairs in his strong arms, laid her on her bed, and sat beside her for ten minutes’ precious private talk.
“It’s a facer, Peg,” he said. “I can’t deny it’s a facer. When I walked out of that doctor’s room I felt as weak as a child. The shock knocked the strength out of me. I had never thought of anything else but being a soldier, you see, and it’s a strange experience to have to face life afresh, with everything that you had expected taken out of it, and nothing ahead but blankness and disappointment. I’ve been so strong too—as strong as a horse. If it hadn’t been for that blow—well, it’s over and it’s a comfort to me to feel that it was not my own fault. If I’d been lazy or careless and had failed in the exam, it would have driven me crazy; but this was altogether beyond my control. It is frightfully rough luck, but I don’t mean to howl—I must make the best of what’s left!”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure you will. You have begun well, for I think you have been wonderfully brave and courageous about it, Arthur dear!”
“Well, of course!” said Arthur softly. “I always meant to be that, Peg; and, as the mater says, it is only another kind of battle. The other would have been easier, but I mean to fight still! I am not going to give up all my dreams. You shall be proud of me yet, though not in the way you expected.”
“I never was so proud of you in my life!” Peggy cried. “Never in all my life.”
Long after Arthur had kissed her and gone to his own room she lay awake, thinking of his words and of the expression on his handsome face as the firelight played on moistened eye and trembling lip. “I mean to fight,” “You shall be proud of me yet.” The words rang in her ears and would not be silenced. When she fell asleep Arthur was still by her side; the marks of tears were on his face. He was telling her once more the story of disappointment and failure; but she could not listen to him, for her eyes were fixed on something that was pinned on the breast of his coat—a little iron cross with two words printed across its surface.
In her dream Peggy bent forward and read those two words with a great rush of joy and exultation.
“For Valour!” “For Valour!” Yes, yes, it was quite true! Never was soldier flushed with victory more deserving of that decoration than Arthur Saville in his hour of disappointment and failure.
(To be concluded.)
[HOUSEHOLD HINTS.]
For those who cannot drink tea without an attack of indigestion to follow, there is good news. Little tablets are now sold in boxes, one of which added to each teaspoonful of tea in the pot, corrects the tannin, and improves the tea. Hundreds of people are now enabled to drink tea who had been obliged to leave it off, and these tablets are a most valuable discovery. Boxes of these Tanocea tablets are sent by the manufacturers, The Tanocea Tablet Company, Bletchley Station, or can be got from all Chemists and Grocers, price one shilling per box.
To keep butter cool in summer is always somewhat of a difficulty, but a butter-cooler is easily improvised by turning a basin or clean flower-pot over the butter on a plate. Place that on a larger dish or basin in which there is water, cover over the top basin with a piece of flannel, the ends of which should rest in the water, and the evaporation of the moisture will keep the butter cool. The water must not be allowed to touch the butter itself.
Be careful when you buy jam, bottled fruits, pickles, or anything in glass vessels, to see that there is no broken glass fallen inside. Should the edge be chipped in any way, examine the contents on the top of the jar or bottle carefully, as broken glass has been found in such, and it would be probably fatal if swallowed. This caution is also necessary for wine and beer bottles.
Children should all be taught to eat salad olive oil. It obviates the necessity of administering other oils as medicine, and they get to like it very much. But care should be taken that it is got from a good maker, and that it really is olive oil. With salad or even with cold potato and a few drops of vinegar, this is most wholesome.
Gas-pipes that are not in use are elements of danger, and great care should be taken not to knock them in any way, or hang things upon them so as to cause a leakage. This is very easily done and is not always readily perceived, so that there may be serious mischief before it is discovered.
[THANK GOD FOR MAY.]
By HELEN MARION BURNSIDE.
The linnet in the hawthorn bush
Her last wee egg has not yet hatched,
Though it is May:
But see, the nesting mother thrush,
By loving mate so proudly watched,
Comes forth to-day!
A veil of fresh translucent green,
A-gleam with opal sparks of dew,
Is the array
Most meet for dainty Spring, I ween,
When all her pretty nymphs anew
Troop forth in May.
Immortal Spring! for ever fair,
Her dews and new-born buds among—
Her gardens gay—
Her callow birds in leafy lair,
And all the beauty, fresh and young,
She brings in May!
“Thank God for Spring—thank God for all
The stirring of new hope it brings,”
Each year I say—
When orchards bloom, and cuckoos call,
And all the land with rapture rings—
“Thank God for May.”
[A HAPPY HEALTHY GIRLHOOD.]
(Dedicated to “The Mater.”)
By “MEDICUS” (Dr. GORDON-STABLES, R.N.).
“From work she wins her spirits light,
From busy day, the peaceful night;
Rich, from the very want of wealth,
In heaven’s best treasures—peace and health.”—Gray.
“Wretched, unidea’d girls.”—Johnson.
he last quoted line is, as you see, from Johnson—Sam Johnson the lexicographer, Sam the learned, and, if I chose to be ill-natured, I might add Sam the sot. A man of infinite jest and “a stolid kind of humour, but cuttingly sarcastic”; a man whom Scotland delighted to honour, and did honour, and treated with the greatest of kindness and hospitality, which he rewarded by trying to hold Scotland and the Scots up to ridicule ever after. A man whose memory therefore I cannot revere. But, giving him his due, when he says “Wretched, unidea’d girls,” he does not mean to insult young womanhood. I think rather that, although his English was like himself, too heavy and elephantine, he meant to convey the impression that a girl who has no ideas, no mind, cannot be truly happy. And here I agree with Scotland’s foe. I pity a poor lassie who has no mind of her own, or who is possessed of a soul that is not firmly anchored in herself, and ballasted with ideas and convictions which are independent of those of anyone else. A flighty soul like this carries with it a nervous, silly, unhappy brain, and a body that is too often feeble and far from healthy.
I have met young ladies who confused Sam Johnson with the rare Ben Jonson. Now Sam was too obese and fond of the pleasures of the table to understand and appreciate girlhood and innocent beauty. Ben was a man spiritual, not grossly corporeal. It was Ben who wrote the lovely lines to Celia—
“Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine.
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I’ll not look for wine.”
The idea, however, was not original, but borrowed from the Greek. But listen, solid Sam never could have penned such lines as Ben wrote in his “Good Life, Long Life”—
“Give me a look, give me a face
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art—
That strike my eyes, but not my heart.”
Well, I believe I could preach a long, useful and pleasant health sermon from the very lines I have quoted. This is not quite my intention, however. But nevertheless I like to see a volume of poetry in a girl’s hand, and some of our older poets really teach us many a lesson, and these alas! are far too much neglected. Fashions, even in poetry, change as well as in music. Give me simplicity in both, and keep your Browning and your Wagner too. Many a lady in society pretends to love both, who knows nothing about either.
But, taking Gray as an example of a true and simple poet, whose lines you can read without racking your brain in wondering what the poet means, is there not, think you, a deal of truth in the verse that heads this paper?
From work many a girl wins light spirits. Work I mean, not the slavery which, alas! is far too often the lot of poor shop lassies and seamstresses, for whom my heart does bleed. Work versus sauntering idleness. This idleness means an open empty mind; and parents may rest assured that, as Nature abhors a vacuum, girls are not very old before they get such minds filled with thoughts and silly aspirations that tend neither to the development of a healthy body nor a wholesome mind. Young girls who have nothing to do build themselves castles in the air and people them with inmates that they themselves are heartily ashamed of.
Indeed, I do not know anything more likely to generate future unhappiness and crabbed ill-health than graduation in the school of idleness.
An idle body preys upon itself and eke an idle mind.
I may be told that it is fashionable to be idle. True, in certain ranks of life, but here is my answer to that. Nature not only hates a vacuum, but she is fond of evenness of surface both as regards the material world and as regards the immaterial. Nature even levels the mountains, or is gradually doing so, and fashion is a tool of hers. Fashion levels down, education and honest work level up; and, in time, Nature will thus see to it that both shall meet.
It was, I think, Bulwer Lytton—one of the heroes of my boyhood—who proposed an “Aristocracy of Letters.” The notion has not yet borne fruit, and the aristocracy we have is certainly not very dignified, it being constantly added to and adulterated by parvenus of the lowest type, namely, men who have made millions dishonestly, such as quacks and patent nostrum men. So, in the course of a few decades, we shall have little reason to be proud of our “upper ten.” But a true and pure aristocracy may yet arise in this country from the ashes of the fading and effete present. Nothing but wisdom, knowledge and health can support this.
Well, every mater who wishes her girls to grow up happy and healthy, as they ought to be, has much to do and much to think about.
It cannot be too strongly impressed upon a mother’s mind that the first portion of a child’s education is begun in the nursery. Children are imitative to a degree, as much so as the monkeys from which, some say, we are evoluted. One cannot be too careful then with the ethical management of the nursery.
Servants allowed to enter there, or maids who take a child out in its little carriage, should be morally and physically pure. Even baby may learn from a nurse things that will never be forgotten. When she gets a little older she may be corrected, and told that to say this or do that is rude or naughty, and she will refrain for fear of punishment—that is all. The seed is sown, and nothing can eradicate the mischief.
I look upon it as a crime for mothers to give up their children wholly to nursery training. The mother should be with her darlings pretty nearly all the time; and if she loves them, she will be. And a mother has far greater influence over them than the very best of nurses.
When babyhood merges into girlhood, one of the first things to be checked is the all-too-easily-learned habit of criticising—generally spitefully—other children she has seen out of doors. This is the first sign of that spirit of tittle-tattleism which blossoms into verbosity, scandal, and all uncharitableness in many full-blown old maids.
SPRING TROPHIES.
If charity and love for all who suffer life cannot be taught by the mother or by a good nurse, then never in this world can a child or girl be truly happy or truly healthy. For a sour and uncharitable soul always goes hand in hand with a nervous or puny body.
Keep your girls busy. Be busy yourself, mother. There is a dignity and grace about household duties that put to the blush all drawing-room airs and frivolities.
But I note that a real genuine young lady is invariably natural and never ashamed to do work that, a “wretched, unidea’d girl” would deem infra dignitatem. I think that this is lovely.
“’Pon honour,” as old military men used to say, I’ve had earls’ or baronets’ daughters in my caravan while gipsying, who have begged of me to permit them to do something for me, and they have hemmed my wind-ravelled curtains, stitched my blinds, filled my pin-cushions—ay, and some would have darned my socks for me, had I permitted them! Now, these were ladies, mind, in the truest sense of the word, good God-fearing girls with hearts full of sympathy and in perfect unison with all the world around them.
Again, as to what some call “menial work,” or household, the girl who learns to cook and serve a dinner, or knows how a meal should be served, or who is not ashamed even to bare her bonnie white arms and help to wash up the delf, the girl who knows even a little medicine and surgery, the girl to whom the gardener will come with a cut and bleeding finger to be tenderly washed and dressed, the girl who can get up betimes in the morning—she is the girl who will make the best wife, and the only wife really worth having.
And she will be healthy in body too, because pure in thoughts and kind in nature.