She talked so grandly, and used such great big words!--"A good thing, too," Mrs Asplin averred. She wished the rest would follow her example, and not use so much foolish, meaningless slang.--Her eyes looked so bright and mocking, as if she were laughing at something all the time.--Poor, dear child! could she not talk as she liked? It was a great blessing she _could_ be bright, poor lamb, with such a parting before her!--She was so grown-up, and patronising, and superior!--Tut!
tut! Nonsense! Peggy had come from a boarding-school, and her ways were different from theirs--that was all. They must not take stupid notions, but be kind and friendly, and make the poor girl feel at home.
Fraulein on her side reported that her new pupil was docile and obedient, and anxious to get on with her studies, though not so far advanced as might have been expected. Esther was far ahead of her in most subjects, and Mellicent learned with pained surprise that she knew nothing whatever about decimal fractions.
"Circ.u.mstances, dear," she explained, "circ.u.mstances over which I had no control prevented an acquaintance, but no doubt I shall soon know all about them, and then I shall be pleased to give you the promised help;"
and Mellicent found herself saying, "Thank you," in a meek and submissive manner, instead of indulging in a well-merited rebuke.
No amount of ignorance seemed to daunt Mariquita, or to shake her belief in herself. When Maxwell came to grief in a Latin essay, she looked up and said, "Can I a.s.sist you?" and when Robert read aloud a pa.s.sage from Carlyle, she laid her head on one side and said, "Now, do you know, I am not altogether sure that I am with him on that point!" with an a.s.surance which paralysed the hearers.
Esther and Mellicent discussed seriously together as to whether they liked, or disliked, this extraordinary creature, and had great difficulty in coming to a conclusion. She teased, puzzled, aggravated, and provoked them; therefore, if they had any claim to be logical, they should dislike her cordially, yet somehow or other they could not bring themselves to say that they disliked Mariquita. There were moments when they came perilously near loving the aggravating creature. Already it gave them quite a shock to look back upon the time when there was no Peggy Saville to occupy their thoughts, and life without the interest of her presence would have seemed unspeakably flat and uninteresting. She was a bundle of mystery. Even her looks seemed to exercise an uncanny fascination. On the evening of her arrival the unanimous opinion had been that she was decidedly plain, but there was something about the pale little face which always seemed to invite a second glance, and the more closely you gazed, the more complete was the feeling of satisfaction.
"Her face is so _neat_," Mellicent said to herself; and the adjective was not inappropriate, for Peggy"s small features looked as though they had been modelled by the hand of a fastidious artist, and the air of dainty finish extended to her hands and feet and slight, graceful figure.
The subject came up for discussion on the third evening after Peggy"s arrival, when she had been called out of the room to speak to Mrs Asplin for a few minutes. Esther gazed after her as she walked across the floor with her dignified tread, and when the door was closed she said slowly--
"I don"t think Mariquita is as plain now as I did at first; do you, Oswald?"
"N-no! I don"t think I do. I should not call her exactly plain. She is a funny little thing, but there"s something nice about her face."
"Very nice!"
"Last night in the pink dress she looked almost pretty."
"Y-es!"
"Quite pretty!"
"Y-es! really quite pretty."
"We shall think her lovely in another week," said Mellicent tragically.
"Those awful Savilles! They are all alike--there is something Indian about them. Indian people have a lot of secrets that we know nothing about; they use spells, and poisons, and incantations that no English person can understand, and they can charm snakes. I"ve read about it in books. Arthur and Peggy were born in India, and it"s my opinion that they are bewitched. Perhaps the ayahs did it when they were in their cradles. I don"t say it is their own fault, but they are not like other people, and they use their charms on us, as there are no snakes in England. Look at Arthur! He was the naughtiest boy--always hurting himself, and spilling things, and getting into trouble, and yet everyone in the house bowed down before him, and did what he wanted.--Now mark my words, Peggy will be the same!"
Mellicent"s companions were not in the habit of "marking her words," but on this occasion they looked thoughtful, for there was no denying that they were already more or less under the spell of the remorseless stranger.
On the afternoon of the fourth day Miss Peggy came down to tea with her pigtail smoother and more glossy than ever, and the light of war shining in her eyes. She drew her chair to the table, and looked blandly at each of her companions in turn.
"I have been thinking," she said sweetly, and the listeners quaked at the thought of what was coming. "The thought has been weighing on my mind that we neglect many valuable and precious opportunities. This hour, which is given to us for our own use, might be turned to profit and advantage, instead of being idly frittered away--
""In work, in work, in work alway, Let my young days be spent."
"It was the estimable Dr Watts, I think, who wrote those immortal lines! I think it would be a desirable thing to carry on all conversation at this table in the French language for the future.
_Pa.s.sez-moi le beurre, s"il vous plait_, Mellicent, _ma tres chere.
J"aime beaucoup le beurre, quand il est frais. Est-ce que vous aimez le beurre plus de la_,--I forget at the moment how you translate _jam, il fait tres beau, ce apres-midi, n"est pas_?"
She was so absolutely, imperturbably grave that no one dared to laugh.
Mellicent, who took everything in deadly earnest, summoned up courage to give a mild little squeak of a reply. "_Wee_--_mais hier soir, il pleut_;" and in the silence that followed Robert was visited with a mischievous inspiration. He had had French nursery governesses in his childhood, and had, moreover, spent two years abroad, so that French came as naturally to him as his own mother-tongue. The temptation to discompose Miss Peggy was too strong to be resisted. He raised his dark, square-chinned face, looked straight into her eyes, and rattled off a breathless sentence to the effect that there was nothing so necessary as conversation, if one wished to master a foreign language; that he had talked French in the nursery; and that the same Marie who had nursed him as a baby was still in his father"s service, acting as maid to his sister. She was getting old now, but was a most faithful creature, devoted to the family, though she had never overcome her prejudices against England and English ways. He rattled on until he was fairly out of breath, and Peggy leant her little chin on her hand, and stared at him with an expression of absorbing attention. Esther felt convinced that she did not understand a word of what was being said, but the moment that Robert stopped, she threw back her head, clasped her hands together, and exclaimed--
"_Mais certainement, avec_ pleasure!" with such vivacity and Frenchiness of manner that she was forced into unwilling admiration.
"Has no one else a remark to make?" continued this terrible girl, collapsing suddenly into English, and looking inquiringly round the table. "Perhaps there is some other language which you would prefer to French. It is all the same to me. We ought to strive to become proficient in foreign tongues. At the school where I was at Brighton there was a little girl in the fourth form who could write, and even speak, Greek with admirable fluency. It impressed me very much, for I myself knew so little of the language. And she was only six--"
"Six!" The boys straightened themselves at that, roused into eager protest. "Six years old! And spoke Greek! And wrote Greek!
Impossible!"
"I have heard her talking for half an hour at a time. I have known the girls in the first form ask her to help them with their exercises. She knew more than anyone in the school."
"Then she is a human prodigy. She ought to be exhibited. Six years old! Oh, I say--that child ought to turn out something great when she grows up. What did you say her name was, by the bye?"
Peggy lowered her eyelids, and pursed up her lips. "Andromeda Michaelides," she said slowly. "She was six last Christmas. Her father is Greek Consul in Manchester."
There was a pause of stunned surprise; and then, suddenly, an extraordinary thing happened. Mariquita bounded from her seat, and began flying wildly round and round the table. Her pigtail flew out behind her; her arms waved like the sails of a windmill, and as she raced along she seized upon every loose article which she could reach, and tossed it upon the floor. Cushions from chairs and sofa went flying into the window; books were knocked off the table with one rapid sweep of the hand; magazines went tossing up in the air, and were kicked about like so many footb.a.l.l.s. Round and round she went, faster and faster, while the five beholders gasped and stared, with visions of madhouses, strait-jackets, and padded rooms, rushing through their bewildered brains. Her pale cheeks glowed with colour; her eyes shone; she gave a wild shriek of laughter, and threw herself, panting, into a chair by the fireside.
"Three cheers for Mariquita! Ho! ho! he! Didn"t I do it well? If you could have _seen_ your faces!"
"P-P-P-eggy! Do you mean to say you have been pretending all this time?
What do you mean? Have you been putting on all those airs and graces for a joke?" asked Esther severely; and Peggy gave a feeble splutter of laughter.
"W-wanted to see what you were like! Oh, my heart! Ho! ho! ho! wasn"t it lovely? Can"t keep it up any longer! Good-bye, Mariquita! I"m Peggy now, my dears.--Give me some more tea!"
CHAPTER FIVE.
EXPLANATIONS.
In the explanations that followed, no one showed a livelier interest than Peggy herself. She was in her element answering the questions which were showered upon her, and took an artistic pleasure in the success of her plot.
"You see," she explained, "I knew you would all be talking about me, and wondering what I was like, just as I was thinking about you. As I was Arthur"s sister, I knew you would be sure to imagine me a mischievous tom-boy, so I came to the conclusion that the best way to shock you would be to be quite too awfully proper and well-behaved. I never enjoyed anything so much in my life as that first tea-time, when you all looked dumb with astonishment. I had made up my mind to go on for a week, but mother is coming to-morrow, and I couldn"t keep it up before her, so I was obliged to explode to-night. Besides, I"m really quite fatigued with being good--"
"And are you--are you--really not proper, after all?" gasped Mellicent blankly; whereat Peggy clasped her hands in emphatic protest.
"Proper! Oh, my dear, I am the most awful person. I am always getting into trouble. You know what Arthur was? Well, I tell you truly, he is nothing to me. It"s an extraordinary thing. I have excellent intentions, but I seem bound to get into sc.r.a.pes. There was a teacher at Brighton, Miss Baker,--a dear old thing. I called her "Buns."--She vowed and declared that I shortened her life by bringing on palpitation of the heart. I set the dressing-table on fire by spilling matches and crunching them beneath my heels. It was not a proper dressing-table, you know--just a wooden thing frilled round with muslin. We had two blazes in the last term. And a dreadful thing occurred! Would you believe that I was actually careless enough to sit down on the top of her best Sunday hat, and squash it as flat as a pancake!"
Despite her protestations of remorse, Peggy"s voice had an exultant ring as she detailed the history of her escapades, and Esther shrewdly suspected that she was by no means so penitent as she declared. She put on her most severe expression, and said sternly--
"You must be dreadfully careless. It is to be hoped you will be more careful here, for your room is far-away from ours, and you might be burned to death before anyone discovered you. Mother never allows anyone to read in bed in this house, and she is most particular about matches. You wouldn"t like to be burned to a cinder all by yourself some fine night, I should say?"
"No, I shouldn"t--or on a wet one either. It would be so lonely," said Peggy calmly. "No; I am a reformed character about matches. I support home industries, and go in for safeties, which "strike only on the box."
But the boys would rescue me." She turned with a smile, and beamed upon the three tall lads. "Wouldn"t you, boys? If you hear me squealing any night, don"t stop to think. Just catch up your ewers of water, and rush to my bedroom. We might get up an amateur fire-brigade, to be in readiness. You three would be the brigade, and I would be the captain and train you. It would be capital fun. At any moment I could give the signal, and then, whatever you were doing--playing,--working,-- eating,--or on cold frosty nights, just when you were going to bed, off you would have to rush, and get out your fire-buckets. Sometimes you might have to break the ice, but there"s nothing like being prepared.
We might have the first rehearsal to-night--"
"It"s rather funny to hear you talking of being captain over the boys, because the day we heard that you were coming, they all said that if they were to be bothered with a third girl in the house, you would have to make yourself useful, and that you should be their f.a.g. Max said so, and so did Oswald, and then Robert said they shouldn"t have you. He had lots of little odd things he wanted done, and he could make you very useful. He said the other boys shouldn"t have you; you were his property."
"Tut, tut!" said Peggy pleasantly. She looked at the three scowling, embarra.s.sed faces, and the mocking light danced back into her eyes. "So they were all anxious to have me, were they? How nice! I"m gratified to hear it. Is there any little thing I can do for your honourable self now, Mr Darcy, before I dress for dinner?"
Robert looked across the room at Mellicent with an expression which made that young person tremble in her shoes.
"All right, young lady, I"ll remember you!" he said quietly. "I"ve warned you before about repeating conversations. Now you"ll see what happens. I"ll cure you of that little habit, my dear, as sure as my name is Robert Darcy--"