CHAPTER TWO.
Hector Darcy knitted his brows, and started in bewilderment at thelittle figure before him. "Peggy Saville!" he repeated blankly. "No,you cannot mean it! The little girl who had lessons with Rob, and whosaved Rosalind's life at the time of the fire? The little girl I met atThe Larches with the pale face, and the pink sash, and the pigtail downher back?"
"The self-same Peggy--at your service!"--and Miss Saville swept acurtesy in which dignity mingled with mischief. Her eyes were sparklingwith pleasure, and Major the Honourable Hector Darcy--to give thatgentleman his full title--looked hardly less radiant than herself. Herewas a piece of luck--to make the acquaintance of an interesting andattractive girl at the very beginning of a voyage, and then to discoverin her an intimate friend of the family! True, he himself had seenlittle of her personally, but the name of Peggy Saville was a householdword with his people, and one memorable Christmas week, which they hadspent together at The Larches in years gone by, might be safely acceptedas the foundation of a friendship.
"Of course I remember you!" he cried. "We had fine romps together, youand I. You danced me off my feet one night, and gave me my death ofcold putting up a snow man the next day. I have never forgotten PeggySaville, but you have changed so much that I did not recognise you, andI did not see your name."
"I noticed yours in the list of passengers, and then I looked out foryou, and recognised you at once. There was a Darcy look about the backof your head which could not be mistaken! I meant to ask father tointroduce you to me after lunch, but the book has taken his place. Soyou think I have changed! I have `growed,' of course, and the pigtailhas disappeared; but in other respects there is not so much alterationas could be desired. My father tells me, on an average three times aday, that I shall remain the same `Peggy-Pickle' all my life."
"That sounds bad! So far as my remembrance goes, you used to be amischievous little person, always getting into scrapes and frighteningthe wits out of your companions."
"Ah!" sighed Miss Saville dolorously. "Ah-h!" She shook her head witha broken-hearted air, and looked so overwhelmed with compunction for hermisdeeds, that if it had not been for a treacherous dimple that defiedher control, the major would have felt remorseful at awakening a painfulmemory. As it was he laughed heartily, and cried aloud:
"When you look like that, I can see you again with the pigtail and thewhite frock, just as you looked that Christmas half-a-dozen years ago!Your father is right--you have not changed a bit from the little Peggy Iused to know!"
"I'm a full-fledged young lady now, Major Darcy, and have been `out' forthree whole years. I've grown into `Miss Saville,' or at the very leastinto `Mariquita.'"
"But not to me. I'm part of the old times; Rosalind's brother--Rob'sbrother--you cannot treat me like a stranger. Peggy you have been, andPeggy you must be, so far as I am concerned, for I could not recogniseyou by another name. Sit down and tell me all about yourself. How longhave you been in India, and where are you bound for now?"
"I came out three years ago, when I was eighteen, and now we are goinghome for good. I'm so glad, for though I've enjoyed India immensely,there is no place like the old country. Mother is not strong, so we aregoing to stay on the Continent until it is warm enough to return safely.We shall land at Marseilles, stay a month in the Riviera, and graduallywork our way homewards. When I say home, of course you understand thatwe have no home as yet, but we are going to look round for a house assoon as possible. We know exactly what we want, so it ought to be easyto get it. A dear old place in the country--the _real_ country, not asuburb, but within half an hour's rail of town. A house covered withroses and creepers, and surrounded by a garden. Oh! think of seeingEnglish grass again--the green, _green_ grass, and walking along betweenhedges of wild roses and honeysuckle; and the smell of the earth afterit has rained, and all the little leaves are glistening with water--doyou remember--oh! do you remember?" cried Peggy, clasping her eagerhands, and gazing at her companion with a sudden glimmer of tears whichrose from very excess of happiness. "I don't say so to mother, becauseit would seem as if I had not been happy abroad; but I _ache_ forEngland! Sometimes in the midst of the Indian glare I used to have acurious wild longing, not for the Country... that was always there--butfor the dull, old Tottenham Court Road! Don't laugh! It was nolaughing matter. You know how dull that road looks, how ugly and grimy,and how grey, grey, grey in rainy weather? Well, amidst the glare ofEastern surroundings that scene used to come back to me as something sothoroughly, typically English, that its very dreariness made theattraction. I have stood in the midst of palm and aloes, and justlonged my very heart out for Tottenham Court Road!"
Major Darcy laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"I know the feeling--had it myself; but you will lose it soon enough.In the East you gasp and long for England; in England you shudder andlong for the East. It's the way of the world. What you haven't gotseems always the thing you want; but no sooner have you got it than yourealise its defects. England will strike you as intolerably dreary whenyou are really there."
Peggy shook her head obstinately.
"Never! I was ablaze with patriotism before I left, and I have beengrowing worse and worse all the time I have been abroad. And it will_not_ be dreary! What is the use of imagining disagreeable things? Youmight just as well imagine nice ones while you are about it. Now _I_imagine that it is going to be a perfect summer--clear, and fine, andwarm, with the delicious warmth which is so utterly different from thatdreadful India scald. And father and I are going to turn gardeners, andtrot about all day long tending our plants. Did I tell you that we weregoing to have a garden? Oh yes--a beauty!--with soft turf paths,bordered with roses, and every flower that blooms growing in theborders. We will have an orchard, too, where the spring bulbs come upamong the grass; and I've set my heart on a moat. It has been the dreamof my life to have a moat. `Mariquita of the Moated Grange!'... Soundswell, doesn't it? It would be good for me to have an address like that,for I possess a strong instinct of fitness, and make a point of livingup to my surroundings." Peggy lay back in her seat and coughed in thelanguid, Anglo-Indian fashion which was her latest accomplishment. "Isuppose you don't happen to know the sort of house that would suit us?"
"Within half an hour of London? No! That is too much to ask. It's aChateau en Espagne, Peggy, and not to be had in Middlesex. You willhave to do like the rest of the world, and settle down in a red brickvilla, with a plot of uncultivated land out of which to manufacture yourgarden. There will be neither green sward nor festoons of roses; but,on the other hand, the house will contain every modern convenience, andthere will be hot and cold water, electric light--"
"Don't!" cried Peggy hastily. She lifted her hand with a gesture ofentreaty, and Hector was startled to see how seriously she had taken hisjesting words. "Don't laugh at me! I've been dreaming of it so long,and it's such a dear, dear dream. Do you realise that in all my life Ihave never had a permanent home? It has been a few years here, a fewyears there, with always the certainty of another change ahead; but nowwe mean to find a real home, where we can take refuge, with all ourpossessions around us. Mother and I have talked about it until we can_see_ every nook and corner, and it is waiting for us somewhere--I knowit is! So don't be sceptical, and pretend that it is not! We won'ttalk about houses any more, but you shall tell me your own news. It isfour years since I saw Rob and Rosalind, as they were abroad for theyear before I left England. But you have been home since then, I know."
"Yes; only eighteen months ago. I should not be back so soon, but I'vehad an attack of fever, and am taking a few months off, to pull myselftogether. I'm glad our home-goings have taken place at the same time.What do you want to know? My people were much as usual when I saw themlast; but the mater has not been at all well for some months back. Shehas had to leave the house in charge of her sister, Mrs Everett, and gooff to some baths in Germany for a course of treatment, and I believeshe will not ret
urn to England until the autumn. Rosalind--"
"Yes--Rosalind?"
The major's handsome face softened into a smile, which showed that thesubject of his young sister was pleasant to his mind.
"Rosalind," he said slowly, "is a circumstance--decidedly a circumstanceto be taken into account! We look to her to redeem the fortunes of thefamily, and the mater considers nobody under a royal duke worthy of heracceptance. She is certainly a lovely girl, and a more agreeable oneinto the bargain than I expected her to turn out. She was a spoiled,affected child, but she took a turn for the better after her accident.My parents, I believe,"--Major Darcy looked at his companion with abrightening glance,--"my parents ascribe a great part of the change toyour beneficial influence."
Peggy's cheeks flushed with pleasure, for she had by no means outgrownher childish love of a compliment; but she shrugged her shoulders, andreplied in a tone of would-be indifference:
"Plus the wholesome discipline of having her hair cut short. PoorRosalind! Never shall I forget her confiding to me that she was`wesigned to becoming a hideous fwight,' while all the time she wasadmiring her profile in the mirror and arranging her curls to hide thescar. We had been on very distant terms before that accident; but whenwe were both convalescent we took courage, and spoke faithfully to oneanother on the subject of our several failings. I told Rosalind, ineffect, that she was a conceited doll, and she replied that I was aconsequential minx. It cleared the air so much that we exchanged vowsof undying friendship, which have been kept to the extent of some half-a-dozen letters a year. I know much more about Rosalind than I do aboutRob. Please tell me all you can about Rob!"
"Oh, Rob, you know, was always a boor," said Rob's brother lightly,"and, upon my word, he is a boor still! He did remarkably well atOxford, as no doubt you heard, and then went travelling about for acouple of years through a number of uncomfortable and insanitary lands.He has always been a great gardener and naturalist, and he brought homesome new varieties of shrubs and flowers, out of which he makes a fairamount of money. His principal craze, however, as I understand it, wasto add to his knowledge on the engrossing subject of _Beetles_. He haswritten some papers on them since his return, and they tell me he hasmade his mark, and will soon be considered a leading authority. I mustsay, however, that the whole thing seems to me of supreme unimportance.What on earth can it matter whether there are ten varieties of beetlesor ten thousand? Rob is just the sort of hard-headed, determined fellowwho could have made himself felt in whatever _role_ he had taken up, andit seems hard luck that he should have chosen one so extremely dull andunremunerative." Hector leant his head against the wall with an air ofpatronising disgust, for his own profession being one of avowedreadiness to kill as many as possible of his fellow-creatures, he felt anatural impatience with a man who trifled away his time in the study ofanimal nature. He sighed, and turned to his companion in an appeal forsympathy. "Hard lines, isn't it, when a fellow has society practicallyat his feet, that he should run off the lines like that?"
"De-plorable!" said Peggy firmly, and her expression matched the word.She shook her head and gazed solemnly into space, as if overpowered bythe littleness of the reflection. "Poor Rob--he is incorrigible! Isuppose, then, he doesn't care a bit for dinners, or dances, or standingagainst a wall at a reception, or riding in a string in the Park, butprefers to pore over his microscope, and roam over the country, pokingabout for specimens in the ditches and hedgerows?"
"Exactly. The mater can hardly induce him to go out, and he is never sohappy as when he can get on a flannel shirt and transform himself into atramp. You remember Rob's appearance in his school-days? He is almostas disreputable to-day, with his hair hanging in that straight heavylock over his forehead, and his shoulders bowed by poring over thateverlasting microscope."
A light passed swiftly across Peggy's face, and her eyes sparkled. Oneof the most trying features of a long absence from home is that the facewhich one most longs to remember has a way of growing dim, and elusivelyrefusing to be recalled. In those hot Indian days, Peggy had oftenseated herself in her mental picture gallery, and summoned one friendafter another before her: the vicar, with his kindly smiles; MrsAsplin, with the loving eyes, and the tired flush on the dear, thincheeks; Esther, with her long, solemn visage; Mellicent, plump and rosy;Rex, with his handsome features and budding moustache; Oswald,immaculately blond--they could all be called up at will, and wouldremain contentedly in their frames until such times as she chose todismiss them; but Rob's face refused to be recalled in the same easyfashion. Now and again, from out the gloom, a pair of stormy eyes wouldflash upon her, or she would catch her breath as a stooping figureseemed to rise suddenly beside the palm-trees; but Rob, as a whole, hadrefused to be recalled, until at his brother's words his image hadappeared before her in so vivid and characteristic a guise that itseemed almost as if Rob himself stood by her side. She drew a longbreath, and chimed in with an eager--
"Yes, yes! And his great long arms waving about--I never knew any onewith such long arms as Rob. And a pair of thick, nailed boots, with allfour tabs sticking out, and a tie slipping round to the back of hisneck. It's exactly like him. I can see him now!"
Hector Darcy shrugged his shoulders.
"Don't, please! It's not a pleasant prospect. I try to let distancelend enchantment to the view, for it's bad enough having to go aboutwith him when I am at home. The fellow would not be bad-looking, if hetook a little care of himself; but he is absolutely regardless ofappearances."
"He must have an idea that there are other things of more importance.He was always a ridiculous boy!" murmured Miss Saville sweetly. Themajor glanced at her with a suspicious eye, once more disturbed by thesuspicion that she was being sarcastic at his expense, but Peggy wasgazing dreamily through the opposite windows, her delicately cut profilethrown into relief against the dark wood of the background. She lookedso young, so fragile and innocent, that it seemed quite criminal to haveharboured such a suspicion. He was convinced that she was far too sweetand unassuming a girl to laugh at such a superior person as Major HectorDarcy.