CHAPTER XVIII

A wretched month follows--a month of miserable misery--misery, that is,

that springs from no God-sent misfortune; that has none of that fateful

greatness to which we bow our heads, stooping meekly before the storm of

the inevitable; but a misery that is paltry and reasonless--one of those

miseries that we ourselves spin out of the web of our own spoilt lives.

It seems such a folly and a shame to be miserable in the face of these

yellow October days that by and by steal in, pranked out in the cheerful

glory of their short-lived wealth, with such a steadfast sun throwing

down his warmth upon you from his unchanging blue home; with a park full

of such bronze bracken to push through at your very door; and with such

an army of dahlias, ragged chrysanthemums, and 'Good-bye-Summers,' with

their delicate broad disks, to greet you morning after morning as you

pass in your pleasant ownership along their gossamered ranks.

So Peggy feels; but that does not hinder her from being wretched to her

very heart's core. The inside world may throw a sunshine on the outside

one, as we all know--may make June day out of January night--'the winter

of our discontent' into glorious summer; but the outside can throw no

sunshine on the inside unless some is there already. So Peggy's

'Good-bye-Summers,' though they never in their lives have flowered for

her so beautifully before, smile at her in vain. She has no answering

gladness to give them back. It has not taken twenty-four hours from the

time of her return to prove that it has become absolutely impossible to

please Prue. It is nothing that, on the first evening of her arrival,

she has, as it were, walked over all poor Peggy's little planned

surprises without even perceiving them; that she has turned her dinner

over disdainfully, and remarked how much worse Sarah cooks than when she

went away. These may be but the childish fretfulnesses engendered of

fatigue, and that a good night's rest will sweep away. But when

twenty-four hours have passed, when a week, when a fortnight have gone

by, and find her still cavilling at the smallness of the rooms, the

garden's confined space, and the monotony of their lives, then, indeed,

Margaret's spirits sink as they have never sunk before.

The one definite property that Prue seems to have brought back from her

Harborough visit is a sickly and contemptuous disgust for whatever had

formerly given her pleasure; a standard by which to measure all the

conditions of her own life, and find them grossly wanting. About the

visit itself she is singularly reticent. Not a word does she breathe of

her own prowess in donkey tandem-driving; not a hint does she let drop

of any midnight gambols.

Once and again Margaret sadly fancies that she sees faint signs of the

old lifelong habit of telling her everything trying to reassert its

sway; but in a moment it is checked. Often Prue seems to her sister like

a child who, engaged in some naughtiness, has been charged by its

confederates not to tell. And Prue does not tell. Yet, from indications

which she cannot help letting fall, Peggy gathers that the visit has not

been all pleasure; that fits of bitter disappointment, sharp jealousy,

grisly disillusion, freaked the surface of its feverish joy. And yet

Freddy had been a co-guest with her through the whole fortnight! This

fact Margaret has elicited by direct inquiry; it would never have been

volunteered.

'Come, Prue,' she says coaxingly, on the morning after the young girl's

return, as they stroll about the garden, whose flowers Prue notices only

to disparage, 'I let you off last night because you were so sleepy, but

you must tell me something about your visit now. Was Freddy there?'

'Yes.'

'All the time?'

'Yes.'

'Did you see much of him?'

A slight hesitation, and then an accent of impatience:

'Of course. Were not we staying in the same house?'

'And--and--did Mr. Harborough mount you? You know, don't you--I told

you, I think,' a beam of pleasure shining in her anxious blue

eyes--'that milady has lent you the little gray mare for the whole

winter?'

'I do not think that I care for riding as much as I did,' replies Prue

listlessly, plucking the seed-vessel from an overblown dahlia in the

border beside her, and idly scattering the seeds over the walk. 'We did

not ride much; there were so many more amusing things to do.'

'What sort of things?'

'Oh, they would not have amused you!'

'How do you know that, until you tell me what they were?'

'Oh, they would not have amused you; you are not easily amused. _He_

always says so; and besides,' sinking down with a sigh on the bench

under the Judas-tree, 'of what use to talk of them now they are over?'

For a second Peggy shrinks into herself in baffled discouragement, but

immediately recovers. She will not be so easily disheartened.

'If they are so amusing,' she says cheerfully, 'perhaps we might adopt

some of them here. We are not above learning, are we?'

Prue smiles disdainfully, curling her childish nose.

'In these extensive grounds?'

Nor as time goes on does she grow more communicative about her visit,

though it is clear that its incidents occupy her thoughts to the

exclusion of all other subjects, and though its influence may be traced

in each fragment of her sparse talk. It is one of Peggy's severest daily

penalties to recognise in her sister's languid speech continually

recurring phrases of Betty's; thin echoes of her flippancies. Prue is

even growing to have a dreadful likeness to her model. Possibly this may

arise only from Betty's old hat, which she persistently wears; or from

the mode of hair-dressing, slavishly copied from her original. That the

now fixed bloom in her cheek may be derived from the same source as Lady

Betty's, and cause the undeniable resemblance that exists between them,

is a supposition too bad to be faced, and that Peggy drives away from

her mind as soon as it presents itself. But it recurs. How many

disagreeable things do not recur nightly as she lays her head on that

pillow which is oftener than not wetted with her tears?

'Oh, why did I let her go?' she sobs. 'Why did I take any one's advice?

What has happened to her? What shall I do? It is not my Prue at all that

has come back to me!'

Now and again, indeed, there is a tantalising glimpse of the old Prue,

hidden away, as it were, behind the new one. Once, twice, there is a

curly head resting voluntarily on Peggy's knees; thin arms thrown--and

oh, how thankfully welcomed!--round her glad neck; a little voice

plaining to her of some small physical ill, with a touch of the old

childish confidence in Peggy's power to kiss any wound well. But in a

moment she is gone again; and the new Prue, the dreadful, new, cynical,

imitation Betty Prue is back. It is this new Prue who daily steals with

surreptitious haste to meet the postman, lest the eyes, whose love has

enveloped her through life, should now dare to alight upon her

correspondence. And yet Peggy knows by the after-mood of the day, as

well as if she had scanned superscription and seal, whether or not the

expected missive has come. Judging by this test, the postman is for

Prue, far oftener than not, empty-handed. Once, twice, as Margaret

learns from Lady Roupell, Freddy is expected at the Manor. Once, twice,

at the last moment, some motive of exalted self-sacrifice prompts him to

telegraph that he is unable to come. And now he can no longer be

expected, for mid-October is here; the Universities have reopened their

long-shut arms to their children, and Freddy has returned to Oxford. To

add still further to the discomfort of the situation, the weather,

hitherto so far beyond praise, becomes suddenly as much beyond blame.

There follows a week of pouring, tearing, ruthless rain. The

'Good-bye-Summers' say good-bye indeed.

Three days after the fall of this final blow to Prue's hopes the two

girls meet milady coming out of morning church; milady in her reluctant

and temporary divorce from her spud and frieze-coat. They walk down the

yellow, leaf-strewn church-path with her, as they always do, while she

throws her brusque nods, and her good-hearted greetings to her

fellow-worshippers. As she seats herself in the carriage she pulls a

letter accidentally out of her pocket with her pocket-handkerchief.

'Oh, by the bye,' says she, 'I heard this morning from Freddy; I came

away in such a hurry that I had not half time to read it. If I had been

a little farther off the Vicar,' laughing, 'I would have read it during

the sermon. (Poor dear man!' in a loud aside, 'he really ought to treat

us to a new one.) Freddy says that he is ill.'

'_Ill_, is he?'

'So he says,' with a shrug. 'He says that he has caught a chill. Oh, I

am not very much disturbed,' laughing again. 'I daresay that we are not

going to lose him this time. You know he always cries out some time

before he is hurt.'

She rolls cheerfully away, resuming the reading of her letter as she

goes. Peggy turns apprehensively to her sister. The congregation have

all issued into road and bridle-path, and they are alone. Peggy has time

for an impulse of thankfulness that such is the case; for Prue is

leaning, whiter than her pocket-handkerchief, against the lych-gate.

'_Ill!_' she says gaspingly, under her breath. 'Ill! and all alone!

nobody with him!'

'Pooh!' replies Peggy lightly, and with a half tone of contempt. 'I

daresay it is not much; he is always frightened about himself. Do not

you remember the time when he thought he was going into a consumption,

and bid us all good-bye? How white you look, darling! Had not you better

sit down a moment? Take my arm.'

But Prue will not sit down--will not take her sister's arm. She walks

home unhelped, and on getting there, refuses all Peggy's simple

cordials. But she leaves her luncheon untouched, and is out the whole

afternoon on a long aimless, solitary ramble. She comes in again a full

hour after dusk has fallen, and, complaining of headache, goes to bed.

The next morning she is up, and at her usual stand, lying in ambush for

the postman. After he is gone Peggy catches distant glimpses of her

walking up and down the kitchen garden, reading a letter. She has heard,

then, from him. Thank God! Perhaps her heart will be more at ease.

With her own mind relieved, Margaret goes about her morning's work with

a better courage; and it is eleven o'clock before she again thinks of

her sister. The striking of the hour reminds her that Prue will probably

forget to take her tonic, and that it will be safer to administer it

herself. She pours it out, and opening the drawing-room door, calls

'Prue! Prue!' There is no answer. She moves to the foot of the stairs

and repeats her call, 'Prue!' No answer. She sets the glass down upon a

table, and runs into the garden. 'Prue! Prue!' There is an answer this

time, but unfortunately it is not the right one. It is the parrot

officiously replying, 'Yes,'m,' in the cook's voice. She re-enters the

house. Possibly Prue may be in her own room--one of her new tendencies

is to lock herself in there for hours together--and with the door shut

Peggy's summonses may, though in so small a house it is not likely, have

remained unheard. She runs up and knocks. No answer. She turns the

handle, the door opens, and she looks in. In vain! The room is empty.

She can see this at a glance. It is not likely that Prue is hiding in

her own cupboard, or beneath her narrow chintz bed; and yet her sister,

pushed by what vague suspicion she does not know, enters. A note in

Prue's handwriting and addressed to herself, lying on the small

writing-table in the window, at once catches her eye. In an instant she

has sprung upon and torn it open. What is this? There is neither

beginning nor ending; only a few unsteady lines straggling across a

sheet of paper:

'I have not asked your leave, because I knew that you would not

give it; but I could not--could not let him die alone. Oh, Peggy,

do not be very angry with me! I am so miserable, and I could not

help it.'

That is all. It has not taken Margaret two seconds to master the

contents; and having done so, she stands vacantly staring at the empty

envelope still held in her hand. It is a minute or two before she has

recovered her wits enough to realise that it is not yet empty; that it

contains a second sheet. This is in a different handwriting, one of

those small, clear, clever handwritings affected by the cultured youth

of the day.

'Ch. Ch. Oxford.

'MY PRUE,

'Send me a little word. I am suffering, and I am all alone. I am

scratching you these few pencil-lines in case--as, I fear, is too

probable--I may be too ill to write to-morrow. Oh, my Prue! "The

whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint." What would not I

give for one of your little cold white hands to lay on my

throbbing brow?

'Your

'FREDDY.'

It was only with a half comprehension--so stunned was she--that Peggy

had read Prue's missive; but at the end of Freddy's the dreadful white

light of full understanding breaks upon her soul. Prue has gone to

Oxford!--gone to fulfil young Ducane's aspiration--to 'lay her little

cold hand on his throbbing brow.' Can it be possible? Can even Prue's

madness have gone so far? She snatches up her sister's note again, and

greedily reads it afresh, in the wild hope of finding that she has

mistaken its drift. Alas! there is no room for misapprehension. If she

need further confirmation of her worst fears it comes in the voice of

Sarah, who looks in, duster in hand, through the half-open door.

'Please, 'm, did you want Miss Prue? She has gone out.'

'Gone out!' repeats Margaret breathlessly. Then, making a great effort

over herself for composure, she adds, 'Yes, yes, I know; how did she go?

did she walk or drive?'

'She went in the pony-carriage, 'm.'

'Did she take Alfred with her?'

'No, 'm; she said she should not want him.'

'And how--how long ago did she set off?'

'Indeed, 'm, I did not much notice. I happened to look out of the

passage window as I was dusting the stairs, and I saw her drive off; it

must be the best part of an hour ago.'

_The best part of an hour ago!_ Like lightning it dawns upon Peggy that

a train leaves her station for Oxford at ten minutes to eleven. It is a

slow one, as all must be which draw up at the little wayside platform;

not so slow, however, but that a crawl of a hundred and twenty minutes

will land Prue as hopelessly beyond her power of reach as if it were the

'Flying Dutchman' itself, at Oxford station. She is as little able to

hinder her sister from forcing her mad way into the young man's room as

she would be to stop God's lightning from splitting the tree it is

appointed to rend.

With a gesture of rage and despair she dashes Freddy's note to the

ground, and flings her own head down on the open blotting-book whose

pages keep the imprint, scarcely dry, of her sister's insane words. But

in a few minutes she has pulled herself together. There is only one

thing for her to do--to follow and overtake her sister as quickly as

possible. _As quickly as possible!_ But how quickly is that? This is the

first thing to be discovered.

She goes down into the cheerful hall, where the birds in their big cage

are swinging on John Talbot's ladder, and chattering to each other as

jovially as if no disaster had fallen on their roof-tree; where Mink is

lying on his small hairy side in a sun-patch, with his little paws

crossed like a dying saint's. Margaret searches for the _Bradshaw_,

which apparently Sarah has tidied away. Her first impulse is to call to

her, and ask where she has put it; but her second corrects it. Why

should the household learn any sooner than is unavoidable that Prue has

fled?

By and by she discovers the missing volume, and sitting down, buries

herself in its pages. What she had feared is realised. There is no

second train for Oxford until 2.15. Three hours of forced inaction

stretch before her--three hours for Prue to carry out whatever cureless

folly her burning heart and rudderless mind may dictate.

She starts up. To sit still with such thoughts for company is out of the

question. She wanders back again to Prue's room, picks up Freddy's note

which she had left in her ire lying on the carpet; tears both it and

Prue's into small pieces, and throws them into the grate; then,

misdoubting their being sufficiently destroyed, collects the fragments

again and burns them--tears out even that sheet of the blotting-book

upon which Prue had dried her words, and burns it too.

Then she goes downstairs, and looks at the clock. It has seemed to her

as if she had been a long time over her burning. Yet the clock-hand

points only to a quarter past eleven. She must force herself to some

occupation. To read is impossible. Needlework and gardening both sharpen

instead of deadening thought. It is the day for doing up the week's

accounts. She will compel herself to do them as usual. But the figures

swim before her eyes. The simplest addition baffles her. The names of

Prue, Freddy, Oxford, force themselves into her record of expenditure,

making nonsense of it, defacing her neat columns; and after half an

hour's vain efforts, she desists with a sigh. When one o'clock comes at

last she sits down to luncheon, calmly telling Sarah that she does not

expect Prue back; and having obliged herself, for the sake of

appearances, to eat something, she puts on her hat and jacket.

Leaving word with her household as indifferently as she can that they

are not to be surprised if she and her sister are late in returning, she

sets forth on her walk to the station. She has reflected that she would

start early, in order to give herself plenty of time to walk slowly.

But she does not walk slowly; she walks fast; towards the end she runs.

Who knows whether her clocks may not be slow? whether on coming in sight

of the little upstart red-brick house that constitutes the station, she

may not see the train sliding away without her? She arrives breathless,

to find that she has half an hour to wait--half an hour in which to

admire the station-master's canariensis and his mignonette, which greets

each dusty train-load with its whiff of perfume.

By and by another intending traveller or two arrive. The Manor omnibus

drives up, and disgorges the little Harboroughs and their nurses. Peggy

had known and forgotten that they were to return home to-day. She feels

rather guilty at her own cold inability to echo their loud expressions

of pleasure at this unexpected meeting with her. But they apparently

detect no lack of warmth in her answering greetings, as they each at

once take possession of one of her hands, and march up and down with

her. In the intervals of a searching interrogatory as to the goal and

object of her journey, they continue a quarrel apparently begun in the

omnibus; putting out their red tongues at each other before her face,

and executing agile kicks at one another's legs behind her back.

When the train draws up they insist upon deserting their own suite and

getting in with her. She had rather that they would not have done so;

and yet perhaps it affords a wholesome diversion from her own thoughts

to be continually jumping up to grasp Franky by the seat of his

sailor-trousers, and hinder him from breaking his neck by tumbling out

of the window, or his legs by his endeavours to climb up into the

netting. Lily is not nearly so troublesome. She is sitting quite still,

and _showing off_; trying, that is, to impress by her remarks two quiet

ladies who are fellow-occupants of the carriage with a sense of her

importance.

'I hope,' she says, in a loud voice, 'that my large box is in;' as she

speaks she turns her eyes upon the strangers to see whether they look

awed; but as they do not, she adds, in a still louder key, 'because it

is full of clothes!'

The train slides on through the bright-dyed autumn country; past the

flooded flat meadows lying a-dazzle in the sun, blinding mirrors for the

gorgeous October trees; across and then again across the broad ribbon of

the silver Thames; past distant country houses, lifting their shoulders

out of the gold and red billows of their elms and beeches; past big

villages and little towns, till, after several previous stoppages, they

come to a standstill at the platform of a small station, as destitute of

importance as the one from which they set off. It is that at which the

little Harboroughs are to get out.

'Mammy is coming to meet us,' Lily had announced; 'she will give Franky

such a hug! She never hugs me--I am father's child.'

She throws one final look at her fellow-travellers, to see whether they

are not rather struck by the last statement, before joining her brother

at the window, and jostling her hat against his in the endeavour to have

the glory of obtaining the first glimpse of their common parent. Of

this, however, she is balked, as, whatever may be her after-assertions

to the contrary, there is no doubt that the shrill cries of boy and

girl, 'There she is!' 'There's mammy!' rang out absolutely simultaneous.

Their curly heads fill up the window-space so completely that Peggy, for

a moment, hopes to escape detection and recognition. She hopes it the

more, since, for the first minute, Betty has no eyes save for her boy,

whom she has caught in her arms; relieving Peggy at length from her

convulsive hold of his small-clothes, and burying him under a perfect

smother of kisses.

'My blessing--my beauty! so I have got you back at last! You must

never--never leave your poor mammy again! Well, Lily, how are you?

Goodness, child, what a figure you are! You are one large freckle! Oh,

Miss Lambton, is that you? Where are you off to? Is Prue with you? No?

What fun Prue is! I had no idea until she stayed with me what capital

fun she was. You must let me have her again before long.'

The train moves off, and Margaret, a little heavier-hearted than before,

with it. Some impulse prompts her to pull back the curtain of the little

side-window in order to watch, as long as it is in sight, that figure on

the little platform. Yes, Prue is certainly like her; but, alas! it is

to be not even a good imitation for which she has foregone her own

woodland grace. Margaret had forgotten how pretty Betty was. How

charming she looks now, with her face full of wholesome mother-love,

perfectly unconscious, indifferent as to whether any one is looking at

her or not, clasping her little rosy child.