conscious that the grim messenger who had beckoned and passed by so
many times--under the heights of Jagai, in the clammy Burmese hill
jungles, amid the muddy swamps of West Africa, or the karroo scrub or
grass veldt of the South--meant business on this occasion--had given
up the secret less hidden than forgotten for many years. Many years
since, according to her own confession, faltered out to the Sergeant
upon her dying bed, the pretty young wife of Private Donohoe, urged by
the promptings of motherly love, or incited, as Father Haggarty would
have said, by the temptation of the Devil, arrayed her own nursling in
the long-tailed cambric robe with insertion of Valenciennes, properly
appertaining to the foster-babe; enduing the said foster-babe, namely
Emmeline, infant daughter of Captain and Mrs. Rufford, not only with
the abbreviated cotton frock which was the birthright of a Donohoe,
but with all the privileges appertaining to a daughter of the rank and
file; including a share in the Christmas tree and bran-pie diversions
annually given under the patronage of the Colonel’s wife and other
ladies of the Regiment--including her own mother.
“Don’t say it, Donohoe,” pleaded the bewildered Major, sitting on
the foot of Donohoe’s cot-bed, holding the rigid hand, and shaken by
the throes that were rending the Sergeant’s soul from the Sergeant’s
body. “It’s an idea you’ve got into your head--nothing more! She--your
wife--never changed the babies.... For God’s sake, man, say you know
she didn’t!”
But Father Haggarty’s kindly, pitying look had in it knowledge,
religiously kept sacred, now freed by voluntary confession from the
sacramental seal. He held the Crucifix to Donohoe’s livid lips, and
they moved, and a living voice came forth as from a sepulchre:
“She did ut. Sure enough she did ut; but for the right rayson why,
sorr, I’m yet asthray. For wan thing--herself was a poor hard-workin’
woman--an’ the choild would be wan if ut lived. ’Twas ten years she
carried the saycret--a mortial weight for a wake crayture, an’ a
Prodesdan’ at that, wid no relief av clargy--and it wore her to the
grave. On her dyin’ bed she confessed ut to me. I had my thoughts av
makin’ a clane breast, and then--wurra! ’twas the divil at my elbow
biddin’ me whisht or I’d lose my Peggy that was the pride av me eyes
an’ the joy av me harrut. An’ I held off from Father Haggarty, till
I could hould no longer. That was six Aysthers back; and--‘Tell the
truth,’ says his Reverence, ‘or you’ll get no more of an absolution
from me, me fine man, than Micky-would-you-taste-it?’ An’ at that I
stiffened me upper lips an’ riz from me marra bones an’ wint me way.
But the Hand is on me now, an’ I’ve made my paice wid Thim above; an’
I’d be glad you’d send for my Peggy to be afther biddin’ her ould dada
good-bye--more by token she’s your Miss Emmeline by rights, and not my
purty Peggy at all, at all!”
II
Miss Margaret Donohoe--popularly known in the regiment as “Peggy,”
and, as it will be remembered, betrothed to Private Dancey Juxon,
V. C.--Miss Margaret Donohoe was not summoned to the bedside of her
hitherto-reputed father in time to hear from his own lips the secret
of her birth. She was trimming an old hat with new crape for mourning
exigencies, the day after the Sergeant had been consigned with the
usual military honors to the Catholic division of the cemetery, when
heavy footsteps sounded in the flagged passage of the Married Quarters,
and the Colonel and the Senior Major, both visibly disturbed, walked
into Donohoe’s clean sanded kitchen, and, in as few words as possible,
broke the news.
“It’s a terrible shock to you, my poor girl--as it has been to me!”
said the Major, very white about the gills. “And to--to another I
needn’t name!” He was thinking of his Emmie, and how piteously she had
sobbed last night and hung about his neck, with her pretty hair all
coming down over his mess waistcoat, as she begged him not to send her
away from him, because it wasn’t her fault that she had turned out to
be Donohoe’s daughter and not his own; and how at that moment she was
breaking the news to Garthside--that Junior Captain and Victoria Cross
hero to whom, it will be remembered, she was engaged. Poor Emmie, poor
darling Emmie!--or Peggy, as she ought now to be called! Major Rufford
felt that he never would be able to do it. “But--I’ll try and do my
duty to you as your father should, and--I must look to you to--to do as
much by me!” he concluded lamely.
“Oh, Major!” cried Peggy--Peggy with the hard, bright, black eyes, the
red lips, the tip-tilted nose, the Milesian upper lip, and the coarse
but plenteous mane of dark brown hair liberally “banged” in front and
arranged behind in massive rope coils, secured by hairpins of imitation
tortoiseshell as long as the farrier’s pincers. “Oh, Major! can you ax
it? Sure I’ll thrate you as dacent as ever I did him that’s gone, an’
the Colonel hears me say it!...”
She checked the inclination to weep for one who was, all said and
done, no relation, and put her crackling six-penny-three-farthings
black-bordered handkerchief back in her pocket with an air of
resolution. A flood of new ideas inundated her brain. All that she had
ever dreamed of in the way of the unattainable lay hence-forth within
her reach, and everything that had hitherto appeared most desirable
and possible was from this bewildering hour rendered impossible. Her
eyes fell on Private Dancey Juxon, V. C., who had been sitting on the
kitchen table when the tall shadow of Sir Alured fell upon the sanded
floor, and who had remained, from that moment until this, petrified
in an attitude of military respect, against the whitewashed wall; and
she realized that Dancey--Dancey, the Adonis of the rank and file,
the hero once desired above all others, wrested at the expense of the
most costly and variegated hats and the most dazzling toilettes from
the clutches of how many other women!--Dancey must now be numbered
among the impossibles. If a cold dash of regret mingled with the inward
exultation of Miss Peggy, it was excusable.
“Sure, the dear knows! ’Tis like a tale out av the _Pinny Romancir_,”
she said, “an’ troth it’s no wondher av my breath was tuk away wid the
surprise. To think of that bould craythur, Donohoe’s wife!----”
“Do you mean your mother, my girl?” began the Colonel, but Peggy gave
Sir Alured a look that put him in his place.
“I mane the woman that changed me in me cradle, bad cess to her for a
thrickster!” said Peggy, “an’ put her own sojer’s brat in the place av
me--me that belonged to the Quality by rights. Not that I’m not pityin’
Miss Emmeline--now that she’s Peggy Donohoe, a poor craythur sprung
from nothin’.” The Major turned a groan into a cough, and the Colonel
hauled at the ends of his huge white moustache, but the tide of Peggy’s
brogue was not to be stemmed. “It’ll be a change for her, it will so,
afther livin’ on the fat av the land--an orphan’s pinsion to find her
in stirabout, an’ never a chick nor a child in the woide wurruld but
her ould Aunt Biddy Kinsella!”
“Who--haw!--is Biddy Kinsella?” broke in the Colonel.
“Av’ she’s alive--an’ a bag av dhry bones she must be av she is,” says
Peggy--“it’s at Carricknaclee, in Aher, you may find her. She used to
live wid her niece--manin’ Mrs. Donohoe--an’ she wint back to Ireland
whin me mother died--manin’ Mrs. Donohoe agin--a matter av eight years
ago. An’ ’tis natural Donohoe’s daughter would call her to mind at
a time like this. Maybe the young woman would go to live wid her,”
continued Miss Peggy calmly. “An’ that brings to me own mind, Major--I
mane Papa--whin do ye want me to come home?”
“Home! Oh, Lord!” said the poor Major, before he could stop himself.
“Dee-d cool!” growled Sir Alured, under the huge moustache, squeezing
the Major’s arm with his great, gaunt, brown hand. “But she’s got the
right--got the right, Rufford, you know, don’t you know. Ha--hum!”
“You shall hear from me soon--very soon, Peggy,” said the Major
brokenly. “Good-bye for now, my girl.” He took her coarse red hand, so
unlike his Emmie’s, and kissed her equally red cheek; and as he did
so the petrified Juxon recovered the temporarily suspended powers of
speech and motion, stepped forward, and saluted.
“Beg pardon, gentlemen,” he began, “and pre-’aps I oughtn’t to take the
freedom; but ’avin’ over’eard....”
“Saw you, Juxon! Knew you were there! Thought you had a right to hear,
you know, don’t you know!” said Sir Alured.
But a shrill feminine note of indignation pierced the Colonel’s bass,
as Miss Peggy cried, “Right! I’d be glad you’d tell me what right you
have, Misther Dancey Juxon, to be afther pokin’ the nose av you into
business that doesn’t consarn you, let alone the privit affairs av an
officer’s daughther. Away wid you, an’ larn your place! your room’s
more welcome than your company; an’ if it’s a wife you’re lookin’
afther, maybe when wan av thim that’s av your own station stands up
before the priest wid you, I’ll be making you a little prisint toward
the housekeepin’, av the young woman’s dacent an’ respictable!”
And the bewildered Juxon found himself outside the black-painted
door--marked III. in large white numerals--in the character of a lover
dismissed.
“Well, I’m blowed!” he said, and said no more, but clinked away in
search of the Lethean streams of the canteen.
“Rufford,” said Sir Alured solemnly, as the Chief and the second in
command exchanged the atmosphere of coals and potato peels prevailing
in the Married Quarters for the open air of the barrack square, “I’m
confoundedly afraid she’s a Tartar! Sharp as a needle, sir, and knowing
as a pet fox, if you ask me!”
And the Major said in reply, “These things are supposed to be
hereditary. I wonder where she gets it from!” Then he broke out, “I
can’t believe it, Colonel! I couldn’t, if fifty dying men had taken an
oath to it. That my poor Clara’s girl! It’s impossible! If an angel
were to come down from Headquarters Above, with despatches confirming
the report, I couldn’t credit it!”
“And dee-d if I should blame you,” the Chief responded. “Breed’s bound
to show, somewhere, and there’s not a drop of good blood in the girl’s
veins, I’ll swear!”
“There’s an Irish strain in my family, too,” said poor Rufford
despondently, “and my Emmie has brown hair and eyes; and her nose,
bless it! is a little tilted at the end.”
“_A nay retroussy._ So it is, by George! But there are noses and noses,
y’know,” said Sir Alured. “And Emmie’s a Rufford, from the crown of
her head to the ends of her toes; and we’ll prove it, we’ll prove it,
sir! Donohoe hasn’t a leg to stand on”--which was true--“and as to that
Mullingar heifer”--thus the Chief designated Peggy--“she’ll be sorry
one day for throwing Juxon over, mark my words. Send for that old aunt
of Donohoe’s dead wife--the bag of bones Peggy talked of--and pump her
for all she’s worth. Turn her inside out!--it’s the only advice I can
give you, for my head’s in as dee-d a muddle as yours. And remember,
whatever happens, my Lady is staunch to Emmie! Game woman, my Lady.
Doesn’t care a dee what society says, as long as---- God bless me,
Rufford! I’m talkin’ as though Emmie wasn’t your daughter. But the
whole thing’s infernally confusin’, you know, don’t you know!”
An opinion in which the regiment concurred. An excited beehive would
have furnished but a poor comparison to the barracks upon the morrow,
when Peggy’s great news, imparted in ostentatious secrecy to Mrs.
Quartermaster Casey and a few other non-commissioned officers’ ladies,
had percolated through them. Visitors thronged the Donohoes’ quarters;
Peggy was the heroine of the hour. Press reporters from the town hung
about the barracks on the chance of seeing either of the heroines of
what was termed in the local paper “An Extraordinary Romance in Real
Life,” and the officers’ wives called in a body to condole with Emmie
Rufford, who, as we have heard, had broken off her engagement with
Captain Gerry Garthside.
“I shall not break my heart over things,” she had said, with an
attempt at being everyday and common-sensible that was plucky, if not
convincing, “and I hope you won’t dwell too much upon the collapse
of our house of cards. I hope--I pray you’ll build more solidly,
with--with somebody else. Don’t, Gerry! Oh, don’t! It’s not fair to
make my duty harder to do than----”
Then Emmie had broken down, wept wildly, been kissed, consoled, and
assured of her lover’s undying love and eternal fidelity. Part? Never!
Lose such a pearl of a wife! Not for all the Donohoes past, present,
or to come! I believe, in spite of Emmie’s woe and Captain Gerry
Garthside’s agitation, the young people secretly enjoyed the scene
dramatic; and when Lady Alured came rustling in, about the time when
Gerry’s eloquence attained its utmost pitch of fervor, and hugged and
cried over the hero and heroine of the little drama, that dear woman
was not the least happy of the three.
And later on, after returning to quarters, Captain Garthside found a
letter on his doormat. The contents of the soiled envelope, directed in
a sprawling hand, ran as follows:
“DOOR NO. 3, GROUND FLOOR, BLOCK Q.
“Miss E. Rufford presents comps And wold be Glad to see Cap Garthside
& if Yu will call at 2 remane
“Your Oblidged
“E. RUFFOR”
Of course the Captain knew Peggy Donohoe; had danced with her at
non-commissioned officers’ balls; given her gloves and chocolates,
and sipped the roses of her cheek in common with many another passing
admirer. “And who’d be the worse of a kiss,” as Peggy would have said,
“from a dacent girl?” “Dacent” she undoubtedly was, if not from pure
innate virtue, perhaps from the consciousness that a depreciation in
marketable value attaches to goods that have been soiled by handling.
Had it been otherwise, the state of Major Rufford had been less
gracious, thought Captain Gerry Garthside.
And he looked at Emmie’s photograph standing in a silver frame upon his
mantelshelf, and remembered the piteous smile with which she had told
him that everything must now be over between them, and mentally renewed
his vows of fealty before he went round to “look up Peggy.”
The rooms occupied by the late Sergeant Donohoe were three--a kitchen
and two bedchambers. One of these latter, Peggy, with the assistance
of Mrs. Quartermaster Casey, a dozen yards of cheap Liberty muslin, a
gross of Japanese fans, one or two pieces of Oriental drapery, and a
few articles of furniture of the tottery bamboo kind, had converted
for the time being into a boudoir. Only for the time being, she said
to herself, because when she got her rights she would enjoy all the
splendors now usurped by the real Peggy Donohoe--Miss Emmie, as she
called the usurper when she forgot, which was not often. She would
dress for dinner every evening, and attend balls and theaters in
low-necked, long-trained frocks, chaperoned by Lady Alured, adorned
with the late Mrs. Rufford’s diamond stars, and attended by Captain
Gerry Garthside, V. C. For not one, but all the possessions held and
prerogatives hitherto enjoyed by the false Miss Rufford would naturally
devolve to the real one, once formally recognized and received by
her papa and the regiment; the “ould duds” and bits of sticks once
pertaining to the supposed Margaret Donohoe being transferred to the
veritable Peggy, together with all rights in Private Dancey Juxon, V.
C. The topsy-turvy, comic-operatic whimsicality of her own idea did not
appeal to Peggy’s sense of humor. She was very much in earnest as she
waited for her visitor, seated in state upon one of her own ornamental
chairs, her red hands--hands which could not be transferred to the real
Peggy Donohoe with the other things--folded in her lap.
“She’s here, Captain,” Mrs. Quartermaster Casey--retained as chaperon
until Lady Alured should awaken to a sense of her duties--had said,
opening the door.
“Oh, Captain,” said Peggy, rising coyly, “is it yourself?”
And, owning the soft impeachment as he squeezed the red hand (Gerry
Garthside’s manners to the plainest woman were fatally caressing), the
Captain inquired how he could serve her.
“Sure,” said Peggy, making play with her fine eyes, “you’ll maybe
thinking me forward, Captain, for makin’ the first sign. But me
papa--the Major--will be takin’ up a great dale of me toime by-an’-by,
and wid Mrs. Casey sittin’ in the kitchen widin call, we’re givin’ no
handle to the tongue of scandal, as the sayin’ is----”
“My dear Miss Peggy!--” the Captain was beginning, when Peggy took him
up short.
“I’ll trouble you,” she said, “to remimber that I’m not takin’ any more
Peggy from anywan, high or low, an’ I’d be glad it was ginerally known.
‘Miss Emmeline,’ or ‘Emmie’ for short, you’re free to use, or any pet
name ye may pick.” She cast a languishing glance upon Captain Gerry.
“I’m not likely to quarrel wid it”--she moved nearer--“or wid you. Och,
thin! but ’tis quare how things have turned round wid me! Peggy Donohoe
a week ago, an’ walkin’ out wid Dancey Juxon--an’ now--the Major’s
daughter, an’ your promised bride, Captain jewel! Sure ’tis like a
dhrame, it is!”
And Peggy rested her rather large head upon the shoulder of the
astonished Captain, who hastily withdrew the support.
“Look here, Peggy, my girl!” he said hastily. “What’s this notion
you’ve got into your noddle? You don’t think....”
“I think that you’re a gintleman, Captain,” said Peggy, with a tender
smile, “and would never go back on the promise you gev to the Major’s
daughter. An’ now that I’m her, an’ she’s me, you’ll do your duty by
me, as Dancey Juxon will do his to Donohoe’s poor unfortunate girl. You
may thrust him. We’ve had it out betune us, an’ he’s with her now.”
“With--her--now?” repeated the bewildered Captain.
“I sent him to the Major’s--I mane papa’s--quarters ten minnits ago,
wid a flea in his ear!” said Peggy, folding her red hands about the
elbow of her captive, and rubbing her cheek against his shoulder strap.
“‘I dar’ you,’ sez I, ‘to hang about here,’ sez I, ‘makin’ sheep’s eyes
at a daughter av the Quality, whin that poor crayture you gev your
promise to is cryin’ her two eyes out for the gliff av a glimpse av
your red head. Away wid you,’ sez I, ‘an’ prove yourself a man av your
word, Dancey Juxon, or maybe Peggy Donohoe’ll be takin’ the law av you
wan av these fine days!’”
“My good girl,” said Gerry Garthside, almost pleadingly, “you can’t
really believe what you say you’ve told Juxon--that he is obliged
to marry Miss Rufford, or the lady who has borne that name until
now, because he happens to have given a promise of marriage to Peggy
Donohoe, and Miss Rufford and Peggy have changed places?”
“I mane that!” Peggy’s black eyes snapped out sparks of fire; as
she tossed her head, a loosened coil of black hair tumbled upon her
shoulder. Her fine bust heaved, her cheeks burned scarlet--she had
never looked finer in her life. “Do I not mane just that? Think! Isn’t
her father mine? Isn’t her home my home?--the dhress she wears upon
her back mine?--the ring she has upon the finger av her mine? Ah,
musha, an’ the man that put it there!” Her grasp on Captain Gerry’s
arm tightened, her eyes sought his and held his; her warm, fragrant
breath came and went about his face like a personal caress. “Sure,
dear, you’ll not regret ut,” said Peggy, “for I loved you iver since I
clapped my two eyes on you--I take the Blessed Saints to witness! An’
Dancey Juxon’ll be dacent to Donohoe’s daughter, an’ you an’ me will be
afther lendin’ the young couple a hand, lettin’ her have the washin’
maybe, or the waitin’ at our table--or by-an’-by”--she lowered her
black lashes--“she might come as nurse to the children. So, darlin’....”
The sentence was never finished, for the alarmed Captain broke from the
toils and fled. The Mess story goes that he double-locked his outer
door, barricaded the inner one with a chest of drawers and a portable
tin shower bath, and spent the rest of the day in reconnoitering from
behind the window curtains in anticipation of a descent of the enemy.
But in reality he bent his steps toward the North Quadrangle, where
the Major’s quarters were, and over the familiar blue crockery window
boxes full of daffodils, he caught a glimpse of Emmie’s sweet face, not
pale or bearing marks of secretly shed tears as when he last kissed it,
but bright-eyed, flushed, and dimpling with laughter as she nodded and
waved her hand to a departing visitor, who, absorbed in the charming
vision, glimpsed above the daffodils, collided with and cannoned off
the Captain.
“Hullo! You, Juxon?”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Private Juxon, rigidly at the salute. “I ’ope I
’aven’t ’urt you!” He grinned happily.
“Have you come into a fortune, or inherited a title? You look pretty
chirpy!” said the Captain.
“Not a bad ’it of ’is by ’arf,” said Private Juxon critically to
Private Juxon, “about the comin’ into a title. ‘For,’ says she, ‘_the
greatest gentleman in the land couldn’t ’ave done more--and though I
can’t accept your offer, I shall always look up to you and respect you
as the most chivalrousest and honorablest man I ever met_!’ Wot price
me, after that?”
For, as may be guessed, Private Juxon had proposed, and been rejected.
Standing very stiff and red and upright on the passage door mat, he had
confessed his sense of responsibility and explained his views.
“The general run of feelin’ in the regiment bein’ the same, Miss, as
her own, that I’m bound as a man to keep my promise to Peggy Donohoe,
whether she’s you or you are ’er. I’ve took the freedom of callin’ to
say as wot I’m ready,” said Juxon. “An’ the weddin’ was to come off in
June; but you’ve only got to name an earlier day, Miss, an’ I’ll ’ave
the banns put up, you not bein’ a Catholic, like Peggy--which I ought
to call ’er Miss Rufford now, as owing to ’er station, Miss. But if you
think I’ll ever come short in duty an’ respect to the Major’s daughter,
because she’s turned out to be only the Sergeant’s, you’re wrong, Miss,
you’re wrong--upon my bloo----upon my ’tarnal soul!”
And then it was that Emmie Rufford conferred upon Private Juxon the
title of nobility, which made him a proud man--and unconditionally
refused his offer, making him a happy one.
She is now married to Captain Gerry Garthside, who yet fulfilled his
engagement to the Senior Major’s daughter in leading her to the altar.
For within a week the bubble had burst, topsy-turvydom reigned no more,
the barracks ceased to seethe like one of its own mess cauldrons, and
Peggy Donohoe was compelled to relinquish the privilege of calling
Major Rufford “Papa.” For old Aunt Biddy Kinsella had been discovered
in the smokiest corner of her grandson’s cottage at Carricknaclee, in
Aher, by a smart young solicitor’s clerk; and her sworn deposition,
duly marked with her cross and attested by her parish priest, dispersed
the clouds of doubt from the Major’s horizon, relieved Sir Alured’s
moustache from an unusual strain, and proved the deceased Mrs. Donohoe
to have been the victim of a delusion.