Peggy from Kerry

by L. T. Meade

“I will inquire if Mr. Dodd is in, miss. Will you walk in?”

Kitty entered the hall, and the man went as far as his master’s study. Dodd was busy with his accounts. These were great days for him, he was busy planning his gold so as to use it to the best possible advantage. He was a strange man in his way, and to him there was no more solemn text in the world than the one which declares that “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” He had never stood by the Bank of England without looking up at these solemn words written over the Exchange, he had thought them the finest sentence in the world, and he had determined to make this motto his own. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” And those whom the Lord prospered should give of their abundance to Him. There was no poor person who ever went in vain with a tale of suffering to Daddy Dodd; there was no real, genuine tale of woe that he turned a deaf ear to. But he was no silly, weak philanthropist; he gave judiciously of the money he had so hardly earned. He adored his girls, above all things on earth he adored his wife, and for these precious ones he had special funds which he would not touch, and which were to be used altogether for their benefit. But outside and beyond the money which he had devoted to his wife and girls, he had a large sum yearly which he gave to charities, to those charities which really needed help. Then, again, he had another fund which he devoted, as he expressed it, to “individual want”—to this man who wished to send his boy to college, to this woman who needed to have her daughter educated, to this poor, suffering old lady to whom ten pounds a year would make all the difference between destitution and comfort. This fund was his delight, he personally superintended it, he looked into all the cases for whom he intended to spend it. These people were his special friends, he corresponded with them, he wrote to them always once a year; the time when he sent them their money was the time between Christmas Day and the New Year. He pictured them receiving their cheques, watching for them, smiling when they got them; he pictured their happy faces, and his own face glowed with delight as he thought of theirs. It was worth working hard when he was young when he could do so much good now. The earth was the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.

It was, therefore, an extremely busy man who was now interrupted.

“What is it, Clothier?” he said to the servant, raising his face, which was slightly flushed.

“It’s that little lady, sir—little Miss Merrydew. She has called to see you.”

“Say, with my compliments, that I—I am engaged this morning.”

But before the man could utter a word, Kitty herself had forced her way into the room. “No, you are not engaged,” she said. “I mean you will see me for a minute.” As she spoke she removed her hat; her hat made her look almost commonplace. When it was off the masses of that thick, raven-black hair, the pathetic expression in the eyes, the colour of excitement in the cheeks, caused the man to drop his jaw for a minute and to look at her in unfeigned astonishment. So she was what the world would really call a pretty girl. And he had believed that Anne might be thought beautiful, and that Grace might aspire to that distinction—Grace with her little eyes, Anne with her freckled face! Here was real beauty, those big eyes, so dark, so pleading, so unfathomable; those red, red lips, that pathetic smile which came and went; the colour which faded out of the little face that had been so flushed a minute before.

The man gave a great sigh, rose, and shook himself. “You can shut the door. Go, Clothier,” he said.

Clothier withdrew. Servants are supposed not to know anything about what goes on in their master’s and mistress’s presence; but this man knew perfectly well that there was a little tiny bit of tragedy about to be enacted in that study, and that his master would be engaged with pretty little Miss Merrydew for more than a minute or so.

Kitty walked a few steps into the room, then she stood perfectly still. Dodd got up and looked at her. He did not speak, he did not offer to shake hands; on the contrary, he folded his arms deliberately across his chest, and thus the two faced each other. It seemed to Dodd at that moment that he was looking into the little creature’s soul. A very queer feeling came over him, he recalled a circumstance which had taken place not long ago.