CHAPTER VIII

John Talbot spends a wretched night. He does not owe this to the fact of

Betty's infantine gambols, her ogles and cats'-cradles with Freddy

Ducane through the previous evening; nor yet to any physical ill. It is

one ray of honest contempt from a country-bred girl's heaven-blue eye

that kills his rest. It seems to shine in upon his whole life, as a beam

of clear morning sunshine shines in upon some ugly over-night revel,

bringing out into all their unlovely prominence the wine-stains, and the

guttered candles, and the faded flowers. A desire, whose futility he

recognises, but which is none the less real for the impossibility of its

ever being gratified, to set himself right with this thrice-seen

stranger, takes possession of him; a desire to tell her his story--to

lay before her the reasons why she should be lenient with him. Would she

think them very cogent? His memory, made acuter by the darkness,

journeys back over the past five years, weighing, sifting,

recalling--back to the beginning, that August when his chief's affairs

kept him in London after everybody else had left; when, sick at heart

from a recent grief, he had fallen sick in body too; and when Betty,

also detained in London by some accident--Betty, whom he had hitherto

met only as one meets in the world, hearing of his sad plight, had come

out of pure kind-heartedness--yes, he is quite sure that at first it was

only out of pure kind-heartedness--to sit beside his sofa; Betty, laden

with sweet flowers; Betty, with compassionate eyes and a womanly smile;

Betty, with less paint and a lower voice; with more clothes and fewer

after-dinner stories; and last, fatalest of all, with that likeness,

fancied or real, to the sister he had just lost. He remembers the day on

which he first told her of that resemblance. In the dark night he

recalls again many another little landmark in that first period of his

passion, and grows half tender again as their dead faces rise before

him. But what did that first idyllic stage lead to? To nothing, indeed,

as criminal as the world, as Margaret probably gives them credit for,

but to those unhandsome shifts and expedients which have made of his

life since one long shuffle and evasion. The kotowing to people he

disliked and despised for invitations to meet her; the risky rendezvous;

the mad jealousies; the half-heartedness in his work; the entire

disintegration of all his plans, liable to be upset at a moment's

notice, in order to dovetail in with her convenience; the irrepressible

senseless friendliness, which he dare not refuse, on the part of the

stupid worthy Harborough; the genuine fondness of that Harborough's

little children--he looks back upon them all with nausea. No! there is

nothing to be said for him! She would say that there was nothing to be

said for him! He has slidden down a precipice, it is true, whose first

slope was easy and gentle; but there were many bushes at which he might

have caught in his downward passage to save himself if he had wished;

and he caught at none. And now he is at the bottom! The very passion

which gave some slight tinge of a bastard nobility to his ignoble life

is dead--dead as the roses that flushed its dawn, and he must still be

tied to its lifeless body as fast as--nay, faster than--he was to its

living charms. This is his conclusion; and it is one not much calculated

to lull him into slumber.

To prove the difference between a bad conscience and a good one,

Margaret sleeps calmly; but she wakes in the morning with the sense of

something faintly disagreeable having happened. She shakes it off as she

goes about her garden and her chicken-pens, the more easily as Prue is

in bounding spirits, which is to be accounted for by the fact of Freddy

having invited her to go out riding with him in the afternoon, and

promised to mount her upon one of his own horses--a privilege often

before accorded to her, but which never fails to lift her into Elysium.

She is too excited to settle to anything more solid than jumping over

the garden-beds and the tennis-net, to and fro with Mink. If you are in

paradise, why trouble yourself with earth's sordid tasks? But Margaret,

not being in paradise, is meditatively grubbing on hands and knees in

the rather overgrown border, when a ring at the door-bell brings her

somewhat quickly to her feet. A sudden thought sends the indignant blood

to her cheek. Is it possible that it can be Talbot? After yesterday, is

it conceivable that he can have the presumption again to force himself

upon her? She moves hastily towards the house to forbid his admission,

if it be he. But she is too late. The visitor has been already let in;

and proves to be one to whom her door is never shut--only Freddy Ducane.

'Have you come to fix the time for your ride?' asks she cordially,

beaming upon him. He, at least, has wrenched himself out of Circe's sty.

'Do you want Prue? She is in the garden.'

The young man looks a shade embarrassed.

'Yes,' he says; 'I do. No; I do not--at least, I have something to say

to her, but I think'--insinuatingly--'that I had rather say it to you.

You know, Peggy, how fond I am of saying things to you! There is no one

to whom I can say things as comfortably as I can to you.'

At this preface her heart sinks a little.

'What is it?' she asks curtly.

'Oh, only my luck!' throwing himself into a chair. 'By Jove'--looking

round the room--'how cool you feel! and how good you smell!'

'I do not suppose that you came here to say that,' rejoins she, still

standing over him in expectant anxiety.

His answer is to try and get possession of her hand.

'Peggy,' he says plaintively, 'that is not a nice way to speak to me;

that is not the way I like to be spoken to. The reason why I came

here--it is very inhospitable of you to insist upon my giving a

reason--was to say'--sighing profoundly--'that I fear dear little Prue

and I shall have to give up our ride this afternoon.'

Her foreboding was a true one then!

'Why?'

'Oh, because--because--just my luck!'

'I understand,' replies she caustically. 'You are in the case of the man

who telegraphed to the house where he did not wish to stay, "So sorry.

Cannot come. _No lie ready._"'

Freddy colours.

'Peggy, if I were not so really fond of you,' he says, in an injured

voice, 'I should not allow you to speak to me like that. There are days

when you rasp one like a file. Prue never rasps one.'

'Is that the reason why you think yourself justified in always letting

her go to the wall?' asks Margaret, with a bitterness that seems out of

proportion to the occasion; but in her mind's eye she sees the poor

little figure that has been frolicking among the geraniums with dog and

cat--sees, too, the metamorphosis that will be worked in it.

Freddy rolls his curly head uneasily to and fro on the chair-back.

'You talk as if I were not quite as disappointed as she,' he says, in a

lamentable tone. 'But what is one to do? When one has guests, one must

entertain them. Somebody must entertain _her_.'

'Must entertain whom?'

'Oh, you know as well as I do! You are only asking out of ill-nature.

Betty, of course!'

'Betty, of course!' repeats she after him, with an indefinable accent.

'Well, Peggy, I appeal to you. What could I do, when she asked me

point-blank? You know that I never can refuse to do anything that

anybody asks me point-blank.'

'Then suppose that _I_ ask you point-blank to throw _her_ over?'

suggests Margaret, looking full at him with her straightforward blue

eyes.

'But you would not,' returns he hastily. 'You dear thing, it would not

be the least like you; and it would only make her hate Prue for life.

Ah, you do not know Betty!'

'And, meanwhile, where is her _ame damnee_, pray?' asks Margaret with a

curling nose.

'"Where is John Talbot? Where is valiant John?"'

Freddy shrugs his shoulders.

'Valiant John is a little slack of late; he wants poking up a bit.

But'--with a coaxing change of tone--'it will be just the same to Prue

to go another day, will not it? and you will tell her, will not you?

I--I really am in a great hurry this morning; and I--I--think I had

rather _you_ told her.'

'I will do nothing of the kind,' replies Peggy severely. 'You may do

your own errands.'

Nor do any of his blandishments, any of his numerous assertions of the

reverential attachment he has always felt for herself, any of his

asseverations of the agonising grief it causes him to give the slightest

pain to Prue, avail to make her budge one inch from her original

resolution. She watches him as, with a somewhat hang-dog air, he walks

across the grass-plot to meet her sister, who comes treading on air to

meet him. And then Margaret looks away. She cannot bear to witness the

extinction of that poor short radiance. She does not again meet young

Ducane; nor does Prue reappear until luncheon-time, when she comes down

from her bedroom with red eyes, but an air of determined cheerfulness.

'It would have been much too hot for riding to-day,' she says, fanning

herself; 'unbearable, indeed! We are going a far longer ride in a day or

two. He says he does not think that they will stay long. He was so

bitterly disappointed. I do not think that I ever saw any one so

disappointed--did you?' casting a wistful glance at her elder.

'He _said_ he was,' replies Peggy sadly.

The incident has made her own heart heavy; and it is with an unelastic

step that she sets off in the afternoon to the Manor, summoned thither

by one of Lady Roupell's almost daily cocked-hat notes, to hold sweet

converse upon the arrangements of an imminent village concert. A casual

sentence to the effect that everybody but the old lady herself will be

out has decided Margaret to obey the summons, which, did it expose her

to a meeting with Lady Betty and John Talbot, she would have certainly

disregarded.

Prue accompanies her to their gate, still with that strained look of

factitious content on her childish face; and, as she parts from her

sister, whispers feverishly:

'Find out how soon they are going!'

Dispirited as she was on leaving her own home, Miss Lambton's

cheerfulness undergoes still further diminution before she reaches her

goal; as, in passing through the park, has not she, in a retired and

bosky dell, caught a glimpse of a white gown, and of a supine male

figure, with a curly head and a poetry book, stretched beside it? She

starts at the sight.

Freddy had certainly implied that he was going out riding with Lady

Betty. On searching her memory, she found that he had not actually said

so; but he had knowingly conveyed that idea to her mind. It is not the

first time by many that Freddy Ducane has succeeded in conveying

impressions that do not absolutely tally with the fact; but each fresh

discovery of his disingenuousness gives her a new shock. Lady Roupell's

boudoir is upstairs; and, following her usual custom, Margaret repairs

thither unannounced. In doing so she passes the day nursery's open door;

and, through it, sees Miss Harborough sitting on the floor, buttoning

her boots. Peggy stops a moment to throw the child a greeting; but is

instantly checked by the nurse.

'Oh, please, ma'am, do not speak to her! I am sure that she does not

deserve it! she has been a real naughty girl!'

On inquiry, it appears that the enemy of man having again entered into

Miss Lily, she has cut the string of her necklace, strewed the beads all

over the floor, and then told a barefaced lie, and entirely denied it.

During this recital of her iniquities she continues her buttoning quite

calmly; and merely says, with a dispassionate tone of indifference and

acquiescence:

'Yes, I am bad.'

It is two hours later--so long does the discussion over the penny

reading last--before Margaret again passes the nursery door. The

interval has been filled by a discussion as to which of the local talent

must be invited to contribute, and which may be, without giving too much

offence, left out; but the larger part has been spent in a confederate

consultation as to how best to prevent Mrs. Evans from singing 'Love,

the Pilgrim.'

The matter is arranged at last; and Peggy puts on her hat and gloves

again to depart. As she repasses the nursery door she finds that an

entire change of decoration has taken place. Instead of the young cynic

defiantly buttoning her boots in the teeth of the law, she sees a little

pious figure in a white nightgown, kneeling by its nurse's side. The

instant, however, that the saintly little form catches sight of her it

is up on its bare legs, and rushing towards her.

'Oh, Miss Lambton, do let me say my prayers to you! it would be so

pleasant!--No, Franky,' with a disposition to hustle her little brother,

who is putting in a like claim; 'you are too little; you can say yours

to Nanny!'

As she speaks she pulls Peggy by the gown into the room; and, placing

her in a chair, kneels down at once--so that there may be no chance of

her escaping--beside her, with hands devoutly folded, but a somewhat

roving eye.

'Which shall I say?' asks she, with a wriggle of the back and an air of

indifference: '"Our Father" or "Gentle Jesus"?'

'Say whichever you please,' replies Margaret gently; 'only attend and

make up your mind which.'

'Oh, then,' with another wriggle, 'I will say "Gentle Jesus."'

After a pause:

'Do you think that there would be any harm in my praying for John

Talbot?'

Margaret gives a little jump. It is, then, an hereditary passion! But

she answers drily:

'Not the least.'

Another pause. The wriggling has ceased.

'Only,' pursues Peggy, quite determined not to supply the form of

petition for Talbot's welfare, 'only you must say it out of your own

head. I am not going to tell you what to say.'

'Oh, then,' with an air of resolution, 'I had better say, "God bless

John Talbot; and I am glad he is here."'

She has pronounced this last somewhat eccentrically-worded supplication

rather loud, and at the end of it her wandering eye takes in an object

which makes her spring from her knees as hastily as she had done before.

'Oh! there is John Talbot!' cries she, tearing out barefoot into the

passage, and flinging herself into his arms.

'I have been praying for you!' cries she, hugging him. 'Miss Lambton

said that I might.'

At this unexpected colouring given to her reluctant permission Peggy

reddens.

'I said that there was no harm in it,' explains Peggy hurriedly; 'there

is no _harm_ in praying for any one.'

'And the more they need it the greater charity it is,' replies he,

looking at her with so sad and deprecating a humility that her anger

against him melts.