It is a well-known axiom that misfortunes never come singly, and if
those misfortunes are brought about by our own carelessness, they are
none the less easy to bear. What were Peggy's feelings then, on going
to her key basket, to find it lying empty on the floor, with never a
sign of its contents to be seen! Where had she put them? Memory
brought back a misty recollection of hurrying through her work the
morning before, in order to begin some more congenial occupation, and of
having laid down the bunch in careless fashion, thinking the while that
she would come back for it later on. But where had she placed it?
Where, oh, where? Up and down the room she raced, to and fro she ran,
wringing her hands in distress, and scanning every inch of wall, floor,
and ceiling with her eager glance.
"They are staring me in the face most likely; they are right before my
eyes, and I can't see them!" she cried in despair. "My keys! My keys!
If I can't find them, I can do nothing. I shall be disgraced for ever!
I should have given out the stores yesterday, but I put it off,
miserable, procrastinating wretch that I am! Oh, keys, keys, where are
you, keys? Don't hide from me, _please_, I want you so badly--badly!"
But the keys refused to reveal themselves. They were lying contentedly
in the bottom of a china vase on the staircase, into which they had been
dropped midway in a hasty descent the day before, and, however willing
they might have been to obey their mistress's request, they were clearly
powerless in the matter, since not even the echo of her voice reached
their ears. Peggy searched in a frenzy of impatience, summoned a
housemaid to assist her, and turned the contents of drawers and
cupboards upside down upon her bed, but no success greeted her efforts.
At the end of ten minutes' time she was in a more pitiable plight than
before, since every likely place had been explored, and not the wildest
idea had she where next to repair.
"Wh-at," quoth the housemaid tremblingly, "what shall I say to cook?"
and at that Miss Peggy's eyes sent out a flash which made her look the
image of her soldier father.
"Tell her to get on with what she can," she cried. "She shall have the
stores in five minutes from now!" and away she flew downstairs, leaving
the astonished maid to wonder whether her brain had given way beneath
the strain of the occasion.
Get into the store-room, Peggy was determined she _would_! By fair
means or foul, that citadel must be stormed, and its treasures brought
forth. If the door were closed, the window remained open, and the
gardener's ladder lay conveniently at hand. To scale it so far as the
second storey could be no difficult task for a girl who had been taught
to climb trees and scramble over fences by the most fearless of
masculine guides, and once inside the room the rest was easy, for in the
first flush of careful forethought, a duplicate key had been provided,
which hung on a nail near the door, ready for use if need should arise.
It was characteristic of Peggy that its resting-place should have been
inside the room, instead of out, but there it was, and nothing remained
but to get possession of it as speedily as possible.
She seized the ladder, then, and dragged it towards the desired spot; it
was so top-heavy that it was with difficulty that she could preserve its
balance, but she struggled gallantly until it was placed against the
sill, and as firmly settled as her inexperience could contrive. To
mount it was the next thing, and--what was more difficult--to lower
herself safely through the window when it was reached. That was the
only part of the proceeding of which she had any dread, but, as it
turned out, she was not to attempt it, for before she had ascended two
rungs of the ladder a voice called her sharply by name, and she turned
to find Hector Darcy standing by her side.
"For pity's sake, Peggy, what are you doing?" he cried, and laid his
hand on her arm with a frightened gesture. "Come down this instant!
How dare you be so rash? You don't mean to tell me seriously that you
were going to climb that ladder?"
"A great deal more seriously than you imagine!" sighed Peggy dolefully.
"Oh, why did you come and interrupt? You don't know how important it
is. How did you come to see me here at all?"
"I was going into the house to give myself a brush up in your father's
room, and I saw a glimpse of your dress through the tree."
"And the others--are they coming too? I don't want them to see me; they
must not see me."
"No! No! They are sitting with your mother, having a smoke until lunch
is ready. You need not be afraid; but tell me what is the matter? What
on earth induced you to think of doing such a mad thing?"
Peggy leant against the ladder, and sighed in helpless resignation. She
had not yet descended from her perch, so that her face was almost on a
level with Hector's own. The hazel eyes had lost their mocking gleam,
and the peaked brows were furrowed with distress; it was a very forlorn
and disconsolate but withal charming little Peggy who faltered out her
humiliating confession.
"I--have been--so naughty, Hector! I'm supposed to be housekeeper, and
I forgot to send my orders to the tradesmen last night, so that nothing
has arrived this morning. That's my store-room up there, and the key is
lost, and I _must_ get in, or you will have nothing to eat. I daren't
tell father, for he has warned me to be careful over and over again, and
he would be so angry. I'm in a horrible scrape, Hector, and there's no
other way out of it. Do please, please, go away and let me get on!"
Hector stared at her, his handsome face blank with astonishment. Given
a hundred guineas, he would never have thought of such an explanation,
and coming from a home where the advent of a dozen unexpected visitors
would have made no confusion, he found it difficult to realise the
seriousness of the occasion. There was no doubting Peggy's distress,
however, and that was the important point. Whether she was imagining
her trouble or not, he must come to her aid, and that as quickly as
possible. He stretched out his arms, set her lightly on the ground, and
put his own foot on the ladder.
"I will stay and help you," he said firmly; "that will be better than
going away! You don't expect me to walk off and leave you to risk your
little neck climbing up ladders to provide food for me, do you? Not
quite, Peggy, I think! Tell me what to do, and I'll do it. You want me
to get into the room up there?"
Peggy looked at him doubtfully. The window was small, and Hector was
big; she was afraid he would find it no easy task, but his ready offer
relieved and touched her more than she could express, for he had such an
acute sense of his own dignity that it meant much for him to perform
such a feat.
"You really mean it? It is good of you! You don't mind doing it to
help me?"
"I'd do a great deal more than that to please you, Peggy, if you would
give me the chance!"
This was dreadful. He was growing sentimental, gazing at her with an
expression which filled her with embarrassment, and speaking in a tone
which implied even more than the words. She could not snub him in the
face of an offered service; the only hope was to be brisk and matter-of-
fact.
"Up with you, then!" she cried, stepping back, and waving her hand with
imperious gesture. "Time is precious, and I am already far too late.
I'll watch here until you have got through the window. You will find a
key hanging on a nail. Open the door with it, and you will find me
panting on the threshold!"
No sooner said than done. Hector attempted no more sentimentalities,
but mounted the ladder and squeezed his heavy form through the store-
room window. It was no easy feat, and Peggy had one or two bad moments
as she watched him trembling on the brink. When one foot had already
disappeared he seemed for a moment to overbalance, and righted himself
only by a vigorous effort, but finally he reached the room, and Peggy
ran to meet him, aglow with relief. The key turned in the lock as she
approached, and she rushed forward to select her stores with hardly a
glance in Hector's direction, though with many eager expressions of
thanks.
"You are good! I am relieved! You deserve the Victoria Cross at least.
I was quite agitated watching you, but you managed splendidly-
splendidly. Did you get horribly dusty squeezing through?"
"I think I did, rather. I will go to your father's room and have a
brush. I'll see you at lunch."
"Yes, yes!" Peggy flew past, her arms full of the tins and bottles for
which cook was waiting, leaving the things which were not immediately
needed to be selected on a second visit. When she returned, five
minutes later, Hector had disappeared, and she had leisure to look
around, and feel a pang of shame at the general disorder. A room with
more elaborate preparation for order, and less success in attaining it,
it would have been difficult to discover. Shelves and cupboards were
profusely labelled, and every nook or corner had been dedicated to some
special use, but, alas! practice had fallen short of precept, and the
labels now served no other purpose than that of confusion, since they
had no longer any bearing on their position. Odd morsels of string and
paper were littered over the floor, and empty cases, instead of being
stored away, were thrown together in an unsightly heap beneath the
window. A broken case showed where Hector's foot had descended, and the
boards lay kicked aside, the nails sticking out of their jagged edges.
"Misery me! and himself a soldier too, with eyes staring out of every
side of him!" sighed Peggy, with a doleful imitation of Mrs Asplin's
Irish accent. "If this isn't a lesson to you, Mariquita Saville,
there's no hope left! It's most perturbing to have one's secret faults
exhibited to the public gaze. It will be quite an age before I dare put
on airs to Hector, after this!"
She made a mental vow to set the room in order first thing next day, but
at present could think of nothing but lunch; and when her own
preparations were completed she rejoined the little party in the garden,
and beguiled her father into talking of his past adventures, to prevent
the time from hanging too heavily on his hands.
Hector did not appear until at last the gong sounded, and when he did,
the first glance at him evoked a chorus of exclamations. His face was
white and drawn, and he dragged one foot after him in halting fashion.
In spite of his air of indifference, it was evident that he was in
considerable pain, and as soon as he saw that deception could not be
kept up, he sank down in a chair, as if thankful to give up the strain.
"Turned my foot a little, that's all! Afraid the ankle has gone wrong!"
"Turned your foot! When did you do that? Must have given it a wrench
getting over some of those stiles to-day, I suppose; but you did not
speak of it at the time. You felt nothing walking home?"
"No!"
"It has just begun to trouble you now? Pretty badly too, I'm afraid,
for you look pale, old fellow. Come, we must have off that boot, and
get the leg up on a sofa! It won't do to let it hang down like that.
I'll take you upstairs and doctor it properly, for if there is one thing
I do flatter myself I understand, it is how to treat a sprained ankle.
Will you come now, or wait until after lunch?"
"Oh, have your lunch first, please! It will be time enough when you
have finished. It would be too bad to take you away now, when Peggy has
had so much trouble to prepare a meal for us!"
Hector smiled at the girl in encouraging fashion, but there was no
answering smile upon Peggy's face. She stood up stiff and straight, her
brows puckered in lines of distress. Hector's evasive answers had not
deceived her, for she knew too well that the accident had happened
after, not before, he had reached Yew Hedge. In some fashion he had
strained his foot in mounting the ladder, and he was now trying to
screen her from the result of her carelessness. To allow such a thing
as that, however, was not Peggy Saville's way. Her eyes gleamed, and
her voice rang out clear and distinct.
"I am afraid it is I who am to blame. I am afraid you hurt yourself
climbing into the store-room for me. You were quite well when you came
in, so that must have been how it happened. You stepped on a box in
getting through, and it gave way beneath you, and turned your ankle.
That was it, wasn't it?"
"I--I'm afraid it was. It was stupid of me not to look where I was
going. I thought at the time that it was only a wrench, but it seems to
be growing worse."
"Box! Store-room! Climbing! What on earth are you talking about?"
echoed Colonel Saville, looking in bewilderment from one speaker to
another. "You two have been up to some mischief together since we
arrived. What was it? I don't understand."
"Oh, nothing at all! Peggy wanted to get into the store-room without
wasting time looking for a key that was mislaid, and I ran up a ladder
and got in by the window. That was all; but unfortunately I put down my
foot trusting to alight on the floor, leant all my weight on an empty
box, and--this is the consequence!"
It was an extraordinary statement, despite the matter-of-course manner
in which the words were uttered. It is not usual in well-conducted
households for gentlemen visitors to scramble through windows on the
second storey, or for the daughter of the house to utilise such services
to remedy the effect of her own carelessness. The parents of ordinary
children would have been breathless with horror at listening to such a
recital, but it must be remembered that Arthur and Peggy Saville had
never been ordinary in their habits. From earliest youth they had
scorned the obvious ways of locomotion, had chosen to descend the
staircase on a toboggan improvised out of a kitchen tea-tray rather than
to walk from step to step like rational beings, and to ascend on the
outside rather than the inside of the banisters, so that their
belongings had grown to expect the unexpected, and Major Darcy's
explanation caused less consternation than might have been expected.
Mrs Saville sighed, and her husband uttered an exclamation of
impatience, but both were much more concerned about the condition of the
invalid than the cause of his accident, for it was evident that with
every moment the pain in the foot grew more severe.
"A pretty bad consequence, it seems to me!" quoth the colonel grimly.
"I'll tell you what it is, my dear fellow; you had better come into the
library with me at once, and let me take you in hand. The others can
get on with their lunch while Mary brings me what I want. I'll make you
comfortable in ten minutes, and then we'll send over a cart to The
Larches and get a bag packed, and keep you here for a day or two until
you can get about again. Least thing we can do to nurse you round, when
you have hurt yourself in our service."
Hector protested, but in no very vigorous fashion. Truth to tell, the
prospect of being housed at Yew Hedge, with the colonel as companion and
Peggy as nurse, was much more congenial than the thought of returning to
the big, desolate house where Rob reigned in solitary state and the
sitting-rooms were shrouded in holland wrappings. He allowed himself to
be persuaded, submitted to the sponging and binding which ensued with a
docility which advanced him far in the host's good graces, and ate his
luncheon on the sofa in approved invalid fashion.
It was not until late in the afternoon that Peggy had a chance of
interviewing Hector alone, and of expressing her thanks for the double
service which he had rendered, but when Mrs Saville retired for her
usual rest, and the colonel accompanied the other guest down the drive,
her opportunity came. She was sitting by the tea-table, which had been
placed close to the sofa for the convenience of the invalid, and Hector
was leaning against his cushions watching her little hands flying in and
out of her work. Peggy always made a great affectation of being busy,
and had at least half-a-dozen pieces of fancy work hidden away in as
many drawers, waiting completion at that indefinite period when she
should remember their existence. She glanced at him now, and tried to
speak, threaded a new length of silk, and stitched more assiduously than
ever, glanced again, began a sentence, broke off in confusion, and to
her inward rage felt her cheeks flaming with colour.
Why did he stare so fixedly? Why did he look so queer? It was most
embarrassing, most annoying. She would have liked to show her
displeasure, but how could she, when he was suffering through her folly,
and had been so chivalrous in shielding her from blame?
"I--I want to say all sorts of things," she stammered uncomfortably,
"and I can't think of one! I'm sorry, I'm ashamed, I'm grateful, I feel
a miserable culprit. I don't know what you must think of me and my
miserable carelessness. I wish you would be cross, and say every horrid
thing you could think of. It would help me more than anything else!"
But Hector only laughed, a cheerful, complacent laugh.
"I don't feel the least inclined to be cross. I have had no pain since
your father doctored me, and I am remarkably comfortable sitting on this
sofa. I look upon the little _contretemps_ as a blessing in disguise,
since it has gained me some days at Yew Hedge. Don't be sorry any more,
Peggy, but be as grateful as you please, and show your gratitude by
giving me as much of your society as you can spare from your many
interests. My time is growing short now, and I have seen so little of
you lately."
"You have been so busy going about among your grand friends that you
have had no time to spare for the country. Oh yes, indeed, I'll do all
I can to cheer your solitude. You shall read aloud to me while I sew,
and add up my accounts while I do my housekeeping, and--"
"Seems to me that is rather the wrong way about, isn't it? I thought
you were to amuse me, whereas it seems--"
"Reciprocity! Reciprocity!" murmured Peggy, shaking her head at him
solemnly, and cocking her little finger in the air, as she drew her
thread to its full length. "Reciprocity is the basis of all true
friendship! Mutual service, cheerfully rendered, cements and
establishes amicable relationships. If I were to leave you idle, and
pander to your fancies, it would have a most deleterious effect on your
character. I must endeavour to show my gratitude by doing you good, not
harm."
Hector laid back his head, and chuckled in delighted amusement.
"Bravo, Peggy! Most excellent sentiments! When all trades fail, you
might turn your attention to composing copy-book headings! It's a field
in which you would certainly make a reputation. You have the most
remarkable flow of moral precepts."
"I have!" assented Peggy readily. "It's astonishing. I wish my
behaviour bore more resemblance to my conversation, but indeed the two
have never seemed to have any influence on each other. I've sometimes
thought I should like to keep a girls' school, for I could lecture the
pupils so beautifully against all the faults I myself have committed."
"You will have something better to do than keep a school, Peggy. We
can't spare you for that!" said Hector tenderly. He thought he had
never seen anything prettier than the sparkling, mischievous little
face, or listened to conversation more charming than the quaint,
sententious phrases. What a delight to be with Peggy Saville again
after those weeks of fashionable visiting! What a contrast she was to
the society belles, who made the same remarks, laughed the same laugh,
smiled the same forced artificial smiles! They had bored him to
distraction, but there was no feeling bored in Peggy's society; she was
always interesting, always bright, always charming. He felt no more
doubts as to his own feeling, for absence had made him only the more
appreciative of Peggy's charms. He loved her, he could not endure to
part from her, she must be his wife! He looked at her with a kindling
eye; but Peggy was folding up her work, and did not notice the danger
signal.
"Ah, well," she said, laughing, "judging from recent experiences that's
just as well, for if I forgot to provide food for the poor dears, and
then set them on break-ankle expeditions to rescue my belongings, the
school might not succeed so well as could be desired. I'm off now to
write some letters which must go by the early post; but before I go I
must just say again how grateful I am for your help to-day, and still
more for the way in which you tried to shield me from blame. You were
very, very good, and I'll not forget it!"
She held out her hand with a frank gesture of gratitude, and Hector took
it and held it firmly in his own.
"I'd do more than that to please you, Peggy," he said once more. "A
great deal more than that!" He looked her full in the face with his big
grey eyes as he spoke, and brought his other hand down to press hers
more closely, while Peggy sat with crimson cheeks and downcast eyes,
conscious that she was behaving like any foolish school-girl, yet
miserably incapable of doing otherwise. Then suddenly her hand was
dropped, Hector sat upright with an elaborate affection of indifference,
and a voice spoke from the further end of the room.
"I beg your pardon. I did not mean to interrupt. I came over with your
bag. I heard you had had an accident."
"My dear fellow, come in, come in! It is nothing at all. I have merely
given my ankle a turn. Come in, and we will tell you all about it."
Rob came forward slowly, and Peggy heard as in a dream the murmur of the
two voices, questioning, replying, making arrangements for the future,
but for her own part she could not stir nor lift her eyes from the
floor. She sat in an agony, seeing as in a mirror the scene which had
greeted Rob as he entered the room--Hector's eager glance, her own
embarrassment, his hand and hers clasped tightly together.
What would Rob think? What _could_ he think? If he judged by
appearances, there could be but one solution, and that was that she was
deliberately encouraging Hector's attentions!
Peggy felt sure that he would be furiously angry, but Rob's voice had no
sound of anger in it as he talked to his brother. It was even quieter
than usual, with only a slight tone of formality, to show that anything
unusual had occurred. She summoned up courage to glance across the
room, and met the dark eyes fixed full upon her. Rob had beautiful
eyes, and they had never looked more beautiful than at this moment as he
smiled back with tender, reassuring glance. But Peggy's heart died down
within her, for, oh, if Rob were _not_ angry, things were far, far worse
than she had imagined!