Doctor Cupid: A Novel. Broughton Rhoda
can do better than that,' replies Freddy, in self-defence. 'I am not in voice to-night.'
'But you had not a notion that we were here, had you?' repeats Lady Betty pertinaciously.
'As we had heard you talking at the top of your voices for half a mile before we came up to you, we had some slight inkling of it.'
Peggy wonders whether the cold dryness of his tone is as patent to the person to whom it is addressed as it is to herself. She supposes that it is, since she instantly takes possession of him; and, under the pretext of showing him a plant which can scarcely be distinguishable from its neighbours under the colourless moonlight, walks him off into a dusky alley.
Margaret remains alone with Freddy.
'"Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prithee, why so mute?"'
says he familiarly, approaching her.
She looks him fully and gravely in the face. Most people find it difficult to look at Freddy Ducane without smiling. Peggy feels no such inclination. Between her and this image of youth and sunshine there rises another image – a poor little image, to whom this gay weather-cock gives its weather – a little image that expands or shrinks as this all-kissing zephyr blows warm or cold upon it.
'Because I have nothing to say, I suppose,' replies she shortly.
'Come with me to the walled garden' – in a wheedling voice – 'and show me the stars.'
'Thank you, I can see them quite well here.'
'"My pretty Peg, my pretty Peg,
Ah, never look so shy!"'
cries he, breaking into a laugh, which she does not echo.
'I am not your pretty Peg; and I have told you several times that I will not be called "Peg."'
'Peggy, then. Personally, I prefer Peg; but it is a matter of opinion. Peggy, are you aware that you have been poaching?'
'I do not know what you mean.' But she does.
'Her ladyship did not much like it, I can tell you,' continues he delightedly. 'She manifested distinct signs of uneasiness. I could not keep her quiet, though I went through all my little tricks for her. She would make those ridiculous noises; and she whipped him off pretty quickly, did not she? Ah, Peggy' – tenderly – 'you would have done better to have kept to me! I would not have left you in the lurch.'
To this she deigns no answer.
'Where is Prue?' asks he, a moment later, with an easy change of topic. 'What have you done with Prue?'
'I have done nothing with her,' rather sadly.
'You have sent her home with her nurse to bed, I suppose?' suggests he reproachfully. 'I sometimes think that you are a little hard upon Prue.'
Hard upon Prue! She, whose one thought, waking and sleeping, is how best to put her strong arm round that fragile body and weakling soul, so as to shield them from the knocks of this rough world! This, too, from him, who has introduced the one element of suffering it has ever known into Prue's little life.
'Am I?' she answers quietly; but her cheek burns.
'There is no one that suits me so well as Prue,' says the young man sentimentally, looking up to the sky.
'"She's like the keystone of an arch,
That doth consummate beauty;
She's like the music of a march,
That maketh joy of duty!"'
Peggy's eye relents. He may mean it – may be speaking truth – it is not likely, as he seldom does so; but after all, the greatest liars must, during their lives, speak more truth than lies. One is prone to believe what one wishes, and he may mean it.
'There is no one that I am so fond of as I am of Prue,' pursues he, with a quiver in his voice.
'You have an odd way of showing it sometimes,' says she, in a softened tone.
'Are you alluding to that?' asks he, glancing carelessly over his shoulder at the kiosk. 'Pooh! I hated it. I shall get milady to pull it down some day. I was so glad when you and Talbot came up: it was so dark, and I felt the earwigs dropping on my head.'
'Then why did you go there?' inquires she.
He bursts into a laugh, from which sentiment and quiver are miles away.
'The woman tempted me; at least' (seeing his companion's mouth taking a contemptuous upward curve at this mode of expression) – 'at least, she seemed to expect it. I always like to do what people seem to expect.'
And Margaret's heart sinks.
CHAPTER V
'To one that has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to gaze upon the fair
And open face of heaven – to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.'
It is the next day. John Talbot has spent a very happy morning. He is a countryman at heart. Fate has put him into the Foreign Office, and made him a great man's secretary, and tied him by the leg to London for ten months out of the twelve; but the country, whose buttercups brightened his childhood, keeps his heart – the country, with its little larks upsoaring from its brown furrows; with its green and its russet gowns; with its good, sweet, innocent noises, and its heavenly smells. He has been lying on the flat of his back on the sward, with his hands under his head, staring in luxurious idleness up at the sky, and listening to the robin's song – in August scarcely anybody but the redbreast sings – and to the pleasant swish of the wind among the lime-tops. Lying there alone on the flat of his back – that is to say, at first. Afterwards he has plenty of company. Not, indeed, that either his host or his fellow-guests trouble him much. From the lair he has chosen he has a view of his lady's window. It is true that he looks but seldom towards it, nor do its carefully closed casements and drawn curtains hold out much hope of a descent of the sleeping goddess within. Lady Roupell lets it be understood that she does not wish to be seen or spoken to till luncheon; and the rest are dispersed, he neither knows nor cares whither. And yet he has companions. They are in the act of being escorted out to walk by their nurses when they catch sight of him. In an instant they bear down upon him as fast as their fat legs will carry them.
'Just think!' cries Lily, beginning to shout at the top of her voice long before she reaches him – 'just think what Franky has been doing! Is not he a naughty boy? He took the water-can and emptied it over Nanny's skirt! She says she will ask mammy to whip him!'
'Which mammy will most certainly decline to do,' says Talbot sotto voce to himself.
He has raised himself on his elbow, the more safely to receive their onslaught. He is aware of an idiosyncrasy of Miss Harborough's – that of narrating hideous crimes as having been committed by her little brother, which have in reality been executed by herself.
'If it was Franky who upset the water-can, how is it that it is your frock which is wet?' asks he judicially.
She does not answer, beyond putting her head affectedly on one side, and rubbing her shoulder against her ear.
'Are you sure that it was not you, and not Franky?'
Instantly, with the greatest ease and affability, she acknowledges that it was she; and the nurses at that moment coming up, she is about to be walked off for chastisement, when weakly interceded for by Talbot, who has the further lunacy to request that both children may be left in his charge. After that he has a very eventful morning. He is in turn a pony, a giraffe, a hyæna, a flamingo (unhappily for him the little Harboroughs have lately visited the Zoological Gardens), a rabbit (about the natural history and domestic life of which animal he hears some very startling facts), and the captain of a robber band. Finally, he has to take part in a terrible game – the one most dreaded by their family of all in the little Harborough repertoire – Ingestre Hall destroyed by fire,