“You really mean it? It is good of you! You don’t mind doing it to help me?”
“I’d do a great deal more than that to please you, Peggy, if you would give me the chance!”
This was dreadful. He was growing sentimental, gazing at her with an expression which filled her with embarrassment, and speaking in a tone which implied even more than the words. She could not snub him in the face of an offered service; the only hope was to be brisk and matter-of-fact.
“Up with you, then!” she cried, stepping back, and waving her hand with imperious gesture. “Time is precious, and I am already far too late. I’ll watch here until you have got through the window. You will find a key hanging on a nail. Open the door with it, and you will find me panting on the threshold!”
No sooner said than done. Hector attempted no more sentimentalities, but mounted the ladder and squeezed his heavy form through the store-room window. It was no easy feat, and Peggy had one or two bad moments as she watched him trembling on the brink. When one foot had already disappeared he seemed for a moment to overbalance, and righted himself only by a vigorous effort, but finally he reached the room, and Peggy ran to meet him, aglow with relief. The key turned in the lock as she approached, and she rushed forward to select her stores with hardly a glance in Hector’s direction, though with many eager expressions of thanks.
“You are good! I am relieved! You deserve the Victoria Cross at least. I was quite agitated watching you, but you managed splendidly-splendidly. Did you get horribly dusty squeezing through?”
“I think I did, rather. I will go to your father’s room and have a brush. I’ll see you at lunch.”
“Yes, yes!” Peggy flew past, her arms full of the tins and bottles for which cook was waiting, leaving the things which were not immediately needed to be selected on a second visit. When she returned, five minutes later, Hector had disappeared, and she had leisure to look around, and feel a pang of shame at the general disorder. A room with more elaborate preparation for order, and less success in attaining it, it would have been difficult to discover. Shelves and cupboards were profusely labelled, and every nook or corner had been dedicated to some special use, but, alas! practice had fallen short of precept, and the labels now served no other purpose than that of confusion, since they had no longer any bearing on their position. Odd morsels of string and paper were littered over the floor, and empty cases, instead of being stored away, were thrown together in an unsightly heap beneath the window. A broken case showed where Hector’s foot had descended, and the boards lay kicked aside, the nails sticking out of their jagged edges.
“Misery me! and himself a soldier too, with eyes staring out of every side of him!” sighed Peggy, with a doleful imitation of Mrs Asplin’s Irish accent. “If this isn’t a lesson to you, Mariquita Saville, there’s no hope left! It’s most perturbing to have one’s secret faults exhibited to the public gaze. It will be quite an age before I dare put on airs to Hector, after this!”
She made a mental vow to set the room in order first thing next day, but at present could think of nothing but lunch; and when her own preparations were completed she rejoined the little party in the garden, and beguiled her father into talking of his past adventures, to prevent the time from hanging too heavily on his hands.