PEGGY AND HER SCHOOL COMPANIONS.
Strange to say, however, Mr. Wyndham’s obstinacy was too strong to be
overcome by Mary’s keen desire that Peggy should go to her friend before
she was launched into the terrors—as terrors they certainly would be to
her—of a fashionable English school.
“No, Mary; I hope you will stay with us for the remainder of the
holidays, and do what you can for the poor little thing; but I have
already written to Mrs. Fleming, describing Peggy’s character and
begging of her to be kind to the child. I have received a letter,
telling me that she will accept the charge of Peggy, and that she has no
doubt that in a very short time the girl will turn out all that is
satisfactory. She says there is nothing, after all, like school for
breaking a girl in. She promises to be very kind to the child, and
patient, and says that if the other girls laugh at her they will be
reprimanded. I am certain that I am doing right, my dear. The girl needs
to be educated and that without delay; she would never get the education
she requires at home, and will become interested in her life at The Red
Gables, will choose her own friends, and, in short, will soon be happy
as the day is long.”
Mary had to bring this information to Mrs. Wyndham, who, as may be
easily imagined, was anything but gratified when she heard of her
husband’s determination.
“Really some men are too annoying!” Mrs. Wyndham could not help saying;
then she was silent, for the simple reason that she had nothing more to
say.
The Red Gables was one of those select schools which are to be found
here and there in England; they are, as time progresses, growing rarer
and rarer. The high schools, the schools of the County Council, the
colleges, &c., seem to shut them out, to oppose them, to make them
undesirable; nevertheless, a few still do exist; the old-fashioned sort
of home-school, and of these there could not be a more delightful
specimen than The Red Gables.
The house was exceedingly old-fashioned, and was situated in a most
lovely part of Devonshire. From the windows could be seen a distant peep
of the sea and of some neighbouring hills; the grounds were extensive,
consisting of many acres; and the house itself belonged to a very much
earlier period than the date of this story. For nearly two hundred years
The Red Gables had been a school for girls, and one mistress after
another had taken possession of it; and it so happened that the girls of
the present day were the children of the girls of the past day, their
mothers, their grandmothers, even their great-grandmothers having been
educated at The Red Gables. The school was select and small; there were
in all only twenty girls, and these were divided into the Upper and the
Lower Schools, with ten girls in each. The Upper School lived quite
apart, having little or nothing to do with the Lower School except on
feast-days and on days of special ceremony.
The teachers were—first of all, Mrs. Fleming, who was the daughter of
the late head-mistress (a Mrs. Medbury, a very sweet old lady, who had
died some time ago). Mrs. Fleming had married early in life, had lost
her husband, had lost her children, and had been only too glad to take
possession of The Red Gables. She was essentially a teacher; she had
that inestimable gift of tact which is necessary for all good teachers.
She was very sympathetic and very patient; she had long ago discovered
for herself that there were no two girls alike, so she expected that
each girl who came to her would differ in character from her
predecessors. She watched these young characters most carefully, and as
far as possible she treated them in such a manner as she thought best
calculated to help them in their journey through life.
It was an exceedingly difficult thing to get into The Red Gables, the
school being so small; limited, in short, to twenty boarders, it was all
but impossible to admit any girl there on short notice. Mrs. Fleming had
often been implored to enlarge her borders, and had been assured that
she could just as easily take a hundred girls under her care as twenty;
but she was determined to keep to the good old rules, and not to
increase the numbers of her school. One reason, therefore, why Mr.
Wyndham was so very anxious that Peggy should go to The Red Gables at
once was the fact that there happened to be a vacancy suddenly in the
Lower School, caused by the serious illness of a little girl who had
been obliged to be moved in order to undertake her education at home.
Mrs. Fleming had written immediately to the Wyndhams to tell them of
this vacancy, and to ask them if they had any young friend they would
like to send to her school.
The Wyndhams happened to be some of Mrs. Fleming’s most esteemed and
loved friends. By a curious coincidence this letter of Mrs. Fleming’s
arrived on the day before Mr. Wyndham got his letter from poor Captain
Desmond, begging him to take compassion on his only child. The two
things seemed to Wyndham to fit together too closely to be disregarded.
He accordingly wrote immediately to Mrs. Fleming, describing most fully
the character of the child, and asking her to help him to bring Peggy
up. “She is fifteen,” he said, “and she is as wild as a young colt. She
has been taught after a fashion at a board school in Ireland, but what
her accomplishments are I know not. She would make a very excellent
servant, but she has not the most remote ideas of the part assigned to
her—the life of a young lady. But will you take her? Dare you put such a
little wild colt into the midst of your very orderly school?”
Now it so happened that Mrs. Fleming was rather fascinated than
otherwise by Wyndham’s description of Peggy Desmond. She wrote
immediately to say that she would take Peggy, and had every confidence
that she could train the “little wild colt” to her own views and wishes.
In short, without spoiling Peggy’s character, she would make her what
was most desirable—a real lady. “The difficulty will be this,” she said,
“I must on no account break her spirit, for the child, from what you
tell me, must have enormous spirit. I must train her without breaking
that.”
It was, therefore, impossible for Wyndham to accede to Mary Polly
Molly’s request. The girl must go to The Red Gables; if she did not
seize the chance she might not be able to go to the school at all.
Amongst the teachers at the school was a certain Miss Greene, a very
tall, graceful, and clever woman of about five-and-twenty years. She was
head-teacher to the Upper School; thoroughly understood English
literature and history, and was also a charming companion to the older
girls. She had been carefully trained, first at St. Hilda’s at
Cheltenham, and then at Girton College. She had now been only a year and
a half at The Red Gables, but already her influence in the school was
strongly felt. The next teacher, who exercised an enormous influence
over the girls, was Miss Archdale, the head-teacher in the Lower School.
Then there was Mademoiselle France and Fräulein Stott; these good women
taught in both schools, the Lower and Upper. Miss Smith was a sort of
nurse-teacher to the little ones. She was beloved by all the children,
and more particularly by the small girls. In addition, there was the
housekeeper, who had charge of the commissariat of the establishment;
but Miss Smith was the one to whom the sick and weary invariably went,
and they never went in vain. A German teacher of the name of Herr
Harleigh used to come twice a week to instruct the higher forms in
German; he also taught music; and there was Monsieur Romanes, a
Frenchman, who taught French in the Upper School, and painting as well.
The names of the special girls who figure in this story were, first of
all, Alison Maude. She was the head-girl of the school; was tall,
graceful, and just eighteen years of age. She would leave The Red Gables
in another year, and the rest of the girls did not know how they could
ever get on without her. Her dearest friend was Molly Wyndham, but she
was also fond of Jessie. Both these girls had been for a couple of years
now in the Upper School. Then there was Bridget O’Donnell, the Irish
girl about whom Jessie and Molly had spoken. Bridget was absolutely
charming. She was the life and fun of the place; her laughter was most
infectious, and her jokes were inimitable. She was a perfect lady and
yet she was also a perfect Irishwoman; she would not give up her native
land for all you could offer her. She was extremely pretty, with the
dark-blue eyes which are the sure accompaniment of the true Irish
maiden; but, unlike poor little Peggy, her hair was black as jet and
grew in profusion to far below her knees. Her complexion was that of the
brunette; she had a vivid colour in her cheeks, and lovely crimson lips
with a little dimple at the right corner, which, when she smiled, gave
the final touch to her charms.
Marcia and Angela Welsh were also members of the Upper School; and,
being Mary’s sisters, it was impossible for them to be anything but
lively and charming girls. They were fairly good-looking without being
the least beautiful. They were well-informed for their age, without
having any one special talent; in short, they were ordinary, very nice,
trustworthy everyday sort of girls. Although they had Irish blood in
their veins, they had, unlike Mary, never lived in the dear old country.
They were accustomed, however, to small means, to the hard work which
falls to the lot of girls who belong to a big family where riches are
unknown, and where it is only just possible by the utmost economy to
make two ends meet. Marcia was fourteen and Angela sixteen; but, in
mentioning the two, Marcia was invariably spoken of before Angela,
because she had far more character than her sister.
The Red Gables was an expensive school, and it would have been quite
impossible for Marcia and Angela Welsh to have gone there had not Mrs.
Fleming taken them practically without payment. Mrs. Welsh had been a
pupil of her dear mother, and this good woman was in consequence only
too anxious to help her friend. Marcia and Angela had received a long
letter from Mary with regard to Peggy, and were in consequence all agog
to see her, although they knew that as Peggy would be in the junior
school they would not, under ordinary conditions, have much to say to
her.
And now to speak of that Lower School, where the little Irish girl was
to dwell, was to cast off that curious and yet fascinating sense of
humour and peculiarity of language, which kept her apart from ordinary
girls in that new class of life where she was expected to walk. The
Lower School would, indeed, not prove itself a bed of roses for poor
Peggy. There was one girl who considered herself, whether rightly or
wrongly, the captain of the school. Her name was Kitty Merrydew; she was
twelve years old, and some people said that those glorious, great dark
eyes, that exceedingly dark skin, that hair of jetty black, the rich,
deep colour in each rounded cheek, pointed to Spanish ancestors.
Whatever her birth may have been, there was no doubt of one thing, she
was exceedingly mischievous, and her mischievous ways were joined to an
amount of cunning which made her young companions afraid of her—that is,
those who were not on her side. Kitty was far too clever to be found out
by her teachers. She was small and very slender. Her nickname in the
school was The Imp, although a few of the more venturesome of the girls
called her The Brat. In very truth, Kitty Merrydew deserved both these
names, and if Mrs. Fleming had had the slightest idea of this strange
girl’s influence over her younger pupils she would have dismissed her at
once; but Kitty was one of the people it is exceedingly difficult to
understand. Before her teachers and in the presence of the head-mistress
she could only be regarded as a gentle, low-voiced, rather sweet-looking
girl, a girl decidedly handsome, given to change colour violently, and,
in consequence, to be considered rather delicate; the sort of girl to be
adored by her mistresses and masters, because lessons, however
difficult, were a mere nothing to The Imp. She drank in all instruction
as a thirsty child will drink water, she played beautifully both on the
piano and violin, she recited with such exquisite pathos that those who
listened to her felt tears at the back of the eyes; and yet there was
not one girl in the whole school who did not know well that The Brat or
The Imp was up to mischief; so she had her own way with all those with
whom she came in contact, making them her slaves, and daring them to
defy her, or, as she expressed it, “to tell tales out of school.”
Kitty Merrydew’s special friends were Grace and Anne Dodd. They were
both of them exceedingly plain and exceedingly wealthy; they were
dull-looking girls, and not only looked dull but were dull; nevertheless
they were invaluable to The Imp, who used them on all occasions as her
tools.
The youngest child in the school was a most lovely little creature of
about six years of age. Her name was Elisabeth Douglas. Her father and
mother had to leave her behind when they went to India; and little
Elisabeth, who had been an only darling, and a much petted and much
loved treasure, very nearly broke her little heart when she found
herself alone at The Red Gables. All that money could do was done for
Missy Elisabeth’s comfort, and in particular she had a black servant who
had been her “Nanny” all her life to wait on her. It was very
unwillingly that Mrs. Fleming consented to the admission of Chloe into
the school; but at last she agreed that the woman should remain with the
child for the first year, and after that time she might see her during
the holidays. Little Elisabeth had her own bedroom, where she and Chloe
slept; Chloe curled up on a mat by the door, and the little one lying
fast asleep in her pretty cot, which the mulatto ayah had decked most
fancifully with curtains of the softest white muslin, looped up with
many-coloured ribbons.
When little Elisabeth arrived at the school The Imp began by sneering
and laughing at her; but after a very short time she changed her
tactics, for she perceived an expression in Chloe’s eyes and a certain
watchful manner which made the clever Imp see that she had met her
match. Accordingly The Imp took up little Elisabeth, and the child
quickly yielded to her fascinations. Elisabeth was the sort of little
girl who might be described as an angel. She had great, dark-blue eyes,
which looked strangely dark in that fair little round face; the pupils
of the eyes were very much distended, and the eyelashes were long and
very dark. Above the eyes were delicate, soft brows, most beautifully
marked, the little mouth was a rosebud, and when she laughed there
issued from those small lips a peal of something like angel’s bells.
Nevertheless, little Elisabeth was by no means in the best place in the
world for either her education or happiness, and all this was caused by
the secret and pernicious influence of Kitty Merrydew.
Now it was into this hornets’ nest that poor, wild, untutored Peggy
Desmond was to enter. There was a great deal to dazzle and even delight
the child who had all the wild imagination and poetry of her race. Could
any one, for instance, be quite so wonderful in appearance as little
Elisabeth, who was dressed according to her mulatto nurse’s ideas, and
made in consequence a vivid and even coquettish effect. The little face
was pale and full of reserve, strange and almost unnatural at her tender
years. She had been born in South Carolina; hence the presence of Chloe
on the scene. Her dark-blue eyes were big, wondering, and wistful; her
hair was thick and straight, and rather fair. She wore as a rule a frock
of orange and scarlet striped cotton, which came down just to her knees.
On her head she invariably had perched a small cap of scarlet, with a
great flaring bow of yellow of the most vivid shade. Wherever Elisabeth
appeared there came the stout, cumbersome form of Mrs. Chloe, in her
wonderful turban of crimson and gold.
Mrs. Fleming hoped to alter this strange attire on the part of both
child and maid before the next term had come to an end, but this she was
wise enough to know could only be effected by degrees.
Meanwhile Peggy was being fitted with a suitable wardrobe. This caused
much annoyance to the small person, and but for Mary’s soothing
influence it is doubtful if the clothes would ever have arrived at The
Red Gables. Peggy was at the age when dress was not of the smallest
importance to her; and to be called from Mary’s side to be fitted and
measured, to be turned to right and to left just because of the set of a
frock, nearly drove this small girl wild. “Lawk-a-mercy me,” she was
heard to say, “what do I care so that I’m just covered; for the Lord’s
sake, ain’t that enough? I don’t want fine clothes; that I don’t, Miss
Mary Polly Molly.” But then Mary looked at her sadly, and she dropped
her voice, lowered her long lashes, and said after a minute, “Does ye
want me to be a vain little colleen, Mary?”
“No, I don’t want you to be vain, Peggy; but I want you to be properly
dressed. It would not be at all pleasant for you to go to The Red Gables
not dressed neatly, like other little girls. You would be teased a good
deal if you did.”
“Is it tased? What’s that?”
“Well, they would make fun of you.”
Peggy’s sapphire-blue eyes sparkled. “Let them!” she said; “I can pay
them back in their own coin!”
“Now, Peggy, I’m quite sure you won’t do that. You’ve improved
enormously; you haven’t been in any sort of scrape for the last three
days, and I’m ever so proud of my pupil.”
“Are ye thin, miss?”
“Not miss, Peggy.”
“Are ye thin, Mary?”
“I am, Peggy. I am very proud of you.”
Peggy said nothing, but soon afterwards she took an opportunity to go
away to her own room. There she locked the door; then she flung herself
on her knees by her bedside, and burst into a stormy fit of weeping.
After she had dried her eyes she stood for a minute deliberating; then
said to herself, “I may as well do it, for I can’t do otherways. Mercy
me, ’t ain’t one dhrop o’ slape I’ll get to-night if I don’t do it.” The
next minute she was out of the window, had crawled along the roof, and
had come to the poultry-yard. She was bending down and waiting for Pat,
as she now invariably called him, to bring a ladder. Pat was accustomed
to his name; he liked the Irish missy, and so did his wife. The ladder
was forthcoming, and Peggy had a good time with the little “hins” and
“pigeens.”
“Is it true, Miss Peggy,” said Ann Johns, “that they’re sending you to
school at the end of the holidays?”
“Why, thin, it is,” said Peggy. “If I could run away, I would.”
“Oh, but it’s a beautiful school I’ve heard tell,” remarked Ann, winking
as she spoke at her husband to induce him to hold his peace.
“It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s beautiful or not,” said Peggy. “I
hate it; I hate all schools! Haven’t I had me larnin’?” she continued.
“Didn’t I know up to the third standard, and what more could any young
girrul want?”
“For a poor girl, of course, that would be plenty,” said Mrs. Johns,
“but then you’re a lady, missy.”
“And I tell ye, Mary, I ain’t, and I niver will be. When I’m a growed-up
woman I’ll run away back to the O’Flynns. They can’t niver make a lady
o’ me, try as they will!”
The servants clustered round as usual to listen to their favourite.
Presently a girl rushed up and began to whisper to Mrs. Johns.
“Well, I never!” she said. “I didn’t expect it till to-morrow morning.”
“What is it? What are ye whisperin’ about?” said Peggy.
“Why, missy, dear, you’re in the very luck of time; there’s the little
hen Charity has brought out her brood of chicks. We didn’t expect them
to be hatched until to-morrow morning.”
“Oh glory! oh let’s see!” said Peggy. She began to hop on one leg, to
pull Mrs. Johns by the hand to get her to take her to the spot where
Charity sat guarding her brood. The bright eyes of the little white hen
looked up with conscious pride and at the same time a touching mixture
of apprehension at those who were gazing down at her. Peggy smoothed her
delicate little top-knot, and then, thrusting in her hand, took out a
tiny chick, a ball of yellow fluff. She kissed it very tenderly and then
put it back again under its mother.
“Oh, an’ don’t me heart go out to ye, Charity?” she said, “an’ ain’t ye
a darlin’? Look ye here, Mammy Mary, mayn’t I stay an’ watch wid Charity
for a bit, an’ give her some hard-boiled egg to feed her little chicks
wid? Bedad, now, ye’ll let me, won’t ye, Mary?”
“I daren’t, darling, I wish I could.”
Peggy frowned. “Oh dear, wurra!” she said, “it’s a sad worruld!”
After a time, however, she was induced to go back, Johns and his wife
being, as a matter of fact, most anxious to get rid of her; if she did
not go back almost immediately they would be discovered, and then they
did not know what mischief might befall them. Accordingly, Johns put the
ladder up to the house and Peggy said good-bye to Charity, although
there was a very knowing look in her eyes, and then returned to her own
room.
Now these little escapades on the part of Peggy were never breathed even
to Miss Mary Polly Molly; and Peggy quieted that conscience of hers—that
fairy Princess Mona, who would speak and would not be quiet—at least she
tried to quiet her by disregarding her.
The days flew past, the holidays were over. Peggy, compared to what she
was when first she arrived at Preston Manor, was outwardly vastly
improved, but it is sad to relate that her nature was very much the same
as it was before. She did, however, cry very heartily when she bade Mary
good-bye, but no one else seemed to evoke any feelings in her breast.
Mrs. Wyndham said to her husband: “Mark my words, you will have trouble
with that child, that’s a certainty.”
Wyndham said, “I mean to do my utmost, and I am convinced that in the
long run I shall conquer.”
And then Peggy went off to school with her cousins.
They had a long journey from Preston Manor to The Red Gables, and the
three girls were tired long before it came to an end. Peggy went to
sleep in her corner, and Jessie and Molly began whispering together.
They had a first-class carriage to themselves.
Jessie said, “Well, I do wonder how she’ll get on.”
“Oh she’ll get on all right,” said Molly.
“But you see,” continued Jessie, “the difficulty is this. It was all
very fine while dear old Mary Welsh was with us, looking after her every
single minute of her time, but now things will have vastly changed. You
see, my dear, we two are in the Upper School, and have little or nothing
to do with the girls in the Lower School. I’m so terrified that she’ll
get into the power of The Imp.”
“Yes, I must say I don’t like The Imp at all in connection with Peggy,”
said Molly, “but I tell you what I’ve been thinking, Jess.”
“What’s that?”
“I might have a little talk with dear Mrs. Fleming, and perhaps she’ll
manage that I may sometimes see Peggy.”
“Perhaps she will,” said Jessie, “but there’s one thing certain, you
mustn’t tell any stories of The Imp.”
“Of course I won’t. Whoever heard of such a thing? You don’t suppose I’d
do that, do you, Jessie?”
“I don’t know, you’re such a queer girl, Molly; you take people up in
such a hot sort of fashion. You are almost as impulsive as that dreadful
little Irish thing in the corner.”
Now “the dreadful little Irish thing in the corner,” as it so happened,
opened, not the eyes of her body, but the eyes of her mind at that
moment, and heard the words which Jessie had pronounced. A sudden stab,
a sudden queer tremor took possession of her frame. She, who loathed
England, who had come over because she had been dragged there, was
called by one of those detestable English girls “that dreadful little
Irish thing in the corner.” Oh wouldn’t she give it to her! Without
opening her eyes she knew quite well who had spoken—it was Jessie. Molly
would not be so unkind. From the very first Peggy had hated Jessie.
“I’ll make things unpleasant for her at school,” she thought, “see if I
don’t!” Her cheeks flushed, her eyes brightened. “I’ll kape things dark.
Who’s The Imp? I’ll make friends wid her, if she’ll help me to punish
Jessie Wyndham,” thought the girl. Then she opened her bright eyes wide
and fixed them on the other girls. “How soon will we be there? I’m sick
of this jolting along,” she said.
“We won’t be there for at least an hour,” said Jessie, in a cross voice;
“and as to jolting along, I’m sure, my dear Peggy, you were never in
such a beautiful train before in the whole course of your life.”
“Wasn’t I? The trains in Ireland are twice as nice. They go
jogglety-jogglety, an’ stop just when ye want them. If there’s a little
pigeen lost by the wayside, why, the man stops the train an’ out he gets
to take it up. We’ve a heart of our own in Ould Ireland; ye haven’t a
bit of it in England, ye’re as cold, as cold as a lump of stone!”
“Well, you needn’t abuse us,” said Jessie, in rather a cross tone, “it’s
disagreeable enough to be going to school with you without your abusing
us too.”
“Don’t scold her, Jessie. Remember that, although this is our fourth or
fifth term at school, it is poor little Peggy’s first,” said Molly.
“Peggy, come over and sit close to me, and I will point out the
beautiful things as we pass them by.”
“There ain’t no beautiful things,” said Peggy; “there are no beautiful
things anywhere except in Ireland, bless its heart!”
“Oh come now, come and look at this view; isn’t this quite superb?”
But Peggy refused to admire. Jessie snatched up a school story which she
was reading and turned her back upon the other two, pretending to read.
Peggy whispered to Molly, “Why thin, I don’t like her. What’s put her in
that sulk now, you tell me?”
“You mustn’t speak against my sister,” Molly whispered back.
Then Jessie shrugged one of her shoulders, for of course she heard the
whispering, and made up her mind that, come what would, she would try to
induce Mrs. Fleming to send Peggy away from the school.
Thus these three young people were by no means in a state of harmony
when they arrived at The Red Gables.