Severndale, Maryland.September 21, 19—Captain Neil Stewart,U. S. N.Respected Sir:—As has been my habit these many years, I take my pen in hand to make my monthly report concerning the happenings andthe events of the past month. Most times there isn't many of either outside the regular accounts which, praises be, ain't never got snarled up none since I've had the handling of them.As to the past three weeks considerable has took place in this quiet, peaceful (most times, at least) home, and I ain't quite sure where I stand at, or am likely to. Things seem sort of stirred round. Like enough we-all are old-fashioned and considerable sot in our ways and can't rightly get used to new-fangled ones. Then, too, we—I speak for everybody—find it kinder hard to take our orders from anybody but Miss Peggy, who has got the right to give them, which we can't just see that anybody elsehas got. Howsoever, some folks seem to think they have, and what I am trying to get at is,have they? If I have got to take them from other folks, why, of course I have got to, but it has got to beyouthat tells me I must.Up to the present time I seem to have been pretty capable of running things down here, though I am free to confess I was right glad when Mrs. Harold come along as she done, to give me a hint or two where Miss Peggy was concerned, for that child had taken to growing up in a way that was fair taking the breath out of my body, and was a-getting clear beyondmethough, praises be, she didn't suspicion the fact. If she had a-done itmytime would a-come for sure. But the good Lord sent Mrs. Harold to us long about that time and she was a powerful help and comfort to us all.Hedon't make no mistakes as a rule and I reckon we would a done well to let well enough alone and not go trying to improve on his plans for us. When we do that theother oneis just as likely as not for to take a hand in the job and if he ain't a-kinder stirring round on these premises right this very minute I'm missing my guess and sooner or later there is going to be ructions.Cording to the waywe-all think down here Miss Peggy's mighty close to the angels, but maybe we are blinded by the light o'love, so to speak. Howsoever and nevertheless, we have got along pretty comfortable tilllatelywhen we have begun to discover that our educasyons has been terribl neglected and we have all got to be took in hand.And we are being took powerful strong, let me tell you!It is some like a Spanish fly blister: It may do good in the end but the means thereto is some harrowing to the flesh and the spirit.I don't suppose there is no hope of your a-visiting your home before the ship is ordered South for the fall target practice, more is the pity. Tain't for me to name nothing but I wish to the Lord Mrs. Harold was here. SHE is a lady—Amen.Your most humble and obedient housekeeper,Martha Harrison.
Severndale, Maryland.September 21, 19—Captain Neil Stewart,U. S. N.
Respected Sir:—
As has been my habit these many years, I take my pen in hand to make my monthly report concerning the happenings andthe events of the past month. Most times there isn't many of either outside the regular accounts which, praises be, ain't never got snarled up none since I've had the handling of them.
As to the past three weeks considerable has took place in this quiet, peaceful (most times, at least) home, and I ain't quite sure where I stand at, or am likely to. Things seem sort of stirred round. Like enough we-all are old-fashioned and considerable sot in our ways and can't rightly get used to new-fangled ones. Then, too, we—I speak for everybody—find it kinder hard to take our orders from anybody but Miss Peggy, who has got the right to give them, which we can't just see that anybody elsehas got. Howsoever, some folks seem to think they have, and what I am trying to get at is,have they? If I have got to take them from other folks, why, of course I have got to, but it has got to beyouthat tells me I must.
Up to the present time I seem to have been pretty capable of running things down here, though I am free to confess I was right glad when Mrs. Harold come along as she done, to give me a hint or two where Miss Peggy was concerned, for that child had taken to growing up in a way that was fair taking the breath out of my body, and was a-getting clear beyondmethough, praises be, she didn't suspicion the fact. If she had a-done itmytime would a-come for sure. But the good Lord sent Mrs. Harold to us long about that time and she was a powerful help and comfort to us all.Hedon't make no mistakes as a rule and I reckon we would a done well to let well enough alone and not go trying to improve on his plans for us. When we do that theother oneis just as likely as not for to take a hand in the job and if he ain't a-kinder stirring round on these premises right this very minute I'm missing my guess and sooner or later there is going to be ructions.
Cording to the waywe-all think down here Miss Peggy's mighty close to the angels, but maybe we are blinded by the light o'love, so to speak. Howsoever and nevertheless, we have got along pretty comfortable tilllatelywhen we have begun to discover that our educasyons has been terribl neglected and we have all got to be took in hand.And we are being took powerful strong, let me tell you!It is some like a Spanish fly blister: It may do good in the end but the means thereto is some harrowing to the flesh and the spirit.
I don't suppose there is no hope of your a-visiting your home before the ship is ordered South for the fall target practice, more is the pity. Tain't for me to name nothing but I wish to the Lord Mrs. Harold was here. SHE is a lady—Amen.
Your most humble and obedient housekeeper,Martha Harrison.
The day after this letter was written Dr. Llewellyn 'phoned to Peggy that he would return at the end of the week and if quite agreeable would like to pass a few days at Severndale with her, as his own housekeeper had not yet returned from her holiday.
Peggy was in an ecstasy of joy. To have Compadre under her own roof from Saturday to Monday would be too delightful. Brimful of her pleasurable anticipations, and more like the natural, joyous girl of former days than she had been since leaving Mrs. Harold and Polly, she flew to the piazza where her aunt, arrayed in a filmy lingerie gown, reclined in one of the big East India chairs. For a moment she forgot that she did not hold her aunt's sympathies as she held Mrs. Harold's, and cried:
"Oh, Aunt Katherine, Compadre will be here on Friday evening and will remain until Monday! Isn't that too good to believe?"
"Do you mean Dr. Llewellyn?" asked Mrs. Stewart, coldly.
"Yes, Aunt Katherine, you had no chance to know him before he went away, but you will just love him."
"Shall I?" asked Mrs. Stewart with a smile which acted like a wet blanket upon poor Peggy.
"But why do you call him by that absurd name? Why not call him Dr. Llewellyn?"
"Call him Dr. Llewellyn?" echoed Peggy. "Why, I have never called him anything else since he taught me to call him by that dear name when I was a wee little thing."
"And do you expect to cling to childish habits all your days, Peggy dear? Isn't it about time you began to think about growing up? Sit here upon this cushion beside me. I wish to have a serious talk with you and this seems a most opportune moment. I have felt the necessity of it ever since my arrival, but have refrained from speaking because I feared I might be misjudged and do harm rather than good. Sit down, dear."
Mrs. Stewart strove to bring into her voice an element of deep interest, affection was beyond her,—and Peggy was sufficiently intuitive to feel it. Nevertheless, if anything could have appealed to this self-centered woman's affection it ought surely to have been the young girl who obediently dropped upon the big Turkish cushion, and clasping her hands upon the broad arm of the chair, looked up into the steely, calculating eyes with a pair so soft, so brown, so trustful yet so perplexed, that an ordinary woman would have gathered her right into her arms and claimed all the richness and loyalty of affection so eager to find an outlet. If it could only have been Mrs. Harold, or Polly's mother, howquick either would have been to comprehend the loving nature of the girl and reap the reward of it.
Mrs. Stewart merely smiled into the wild-rose face in a way which she fondly believed to accentuate her own charms, and tapping the pretty brown hands with her fan, said:
"I am growing extremely proud of my lovely niece. She is going to be a great credit to me, and, also, I foresee, a great responsibility."
"A responsibility, Aunt Katherine?" asked Peggy, a perplexed pucker upon her forehead. "Have I been a responsibility to you since you came here? I am sorry if I have. Of course I know my life down here in the old home is quite different from most girls' lives. I didn't realize that until I met Mrs. Harold and Polly and then, later, went up to New London and saw more of other girls and the way they live. But I have been very happy here, Aunt Katherine, and since I have known Mrs. Harold and Polly a good many things have been made pleasanter for me. I can never repay them for their kindness to me."
Peggy paused and a wonderfully sweet light filled her eyes, for her love for her absent friends was very true and deep, and speaking of them seemed to bring them back to the familiar surroundings which she knew they hadgrown to love so well, and where she and Polly had passed so many happy hours.
Mrs. Stewart was not noted for her capacity for deep feeling and was more amused than otherwise affected by Peggy's earnest speech, classifying it as "a girl's sentimentality." Finer qualities were wasted upon that lady. So she now smiled indulgently and said:
"Of course I can understand your appreciation of what you consider Mrs. Harold's and her niece's kindness to you, but, have you ever looked upon the other side of the question? Have you not done a great deal for them? It seems to me you have quite cancelled any obligation to them. It must have been some advantage to them to have such a lovely place as this to visit at will, and, if I can draw deductions correctly, to practically have the run of. It seems to me there was considerable advantage upontheirside of the arrangement. You, naturally, can not see this, but I'll venture to say Mrs. Harold was not so unsophisticated," and a pat upon Peggy's hand playfully emphasized the lady's charitable view.
Peggy felt bewildered and her hands fell from the arm of the chair to her lap, though her big soft eyes never changed their gaze, which proved somewhat disconcerting to the olderwoman who had the grace to color slightly. Peggy then rallied her forces and answered:
"Aunt Katherine, I am sure neither Mrs. Harold nor Polly ever had the faintest idea of any advantage to themselves in being nice to me. Why in this world should they? They have ten times more thanIcould ever give to them. Why think of how extensively Mrs. Harold has traveled and what hosts of friends she has! And Polly too. Goodness, they let me see and enjoy a hundred things I never could have seen or enjoyed otherwise."
Mrs. Stewart laughed a low, incredulous laugh, then queried:
"And you the daughter of Neil Stewart and a little Navy girl? Really, Peggy, you are deliciouslyingenue. Well, never mind. It is of more intimate matters I wish to speak, for with each passing day I recognize the importance of a radical reconstruction in your mode of living. That is what I meant when I said I foresaw greater responsibilities ahead. You are no longer a child, Peggy, to run wild over the estate, but—well, I must not make you vain. In a year or two at most, you will make yourdébutand someone must provide against that day and be prepared to fill properly the position of chaperone to you. Meantime, you must have proper training and as near as I can ascertainyou have never had the slightest. But it can not be deferred a moment longer. It is absolutely providential that I, the only relative you have in this world, should have met you as I did, though I can hardly understand how your father overlooked the need so long. Perhaps it was from motives of unselfishness, though he must have known that I stood ready to make any sacrifice for my dear dead Peyton's brother." Just here Mrs. Peyton's feelings almost overcame her and a delicate handkerchief was pressed to her eyes for a moment.
Ordinarily tender and sympathetic to the last degree, Peggy could not account for her strange indifference to her aunt's distress. She simply sat with hands clasped about her knees and waited for her to resume the conversation. Presently Madam emerged from her temporary eclipse and said:
"Forgive me, dear, my feelings quite overcame me for a moment. To resume: I know dear Neil would never ask it of me, but I have been thinking very seriously upon the subject and have decided to forget self, and my many interests in New York, and devote my time to you. I shall remain with you and relieve you of all responsibility in this great household, a responsibility out of all proportion to your years. Indeed, I can not understand how youhave retained one spark of girlish spontaneity under such unnatural conditions. Such cares were meant for older, more experienced heads than your pretty one, dear. It will be a joy to me to relieve you of them and I can not begin too soon. We will start at once. I shall write to your father to count upon me for everything and, if he feels so disposed, to place everything in my hands. Furthermore, I shall suggest that he send you to a fine school where you will have the finishing your birth and fortune entitle you to. You know absolutely nothing of association, with other girls,—no, please let me finish," as Peggy rose to her feet and stood regarding her aunt with undisguised consternation, "I know of a most excellent school in New York, indeed, it is conducted by a very dear friend of mine, where you would meet only girls of the wealthiest families" (Mrs. Stewart did not add that the majority had little beside their wealth to stand as a bulwark for them; they were the daughters of New York City's newly rich whose ancestry would hardly court inspection) "and even during your school days you would get a taste of New York's social advantages; a thing utterly impossible in this dull—ahem!—this remote place. I shall strongly advise dear Neal to consider this. You simply cannot remain buried here.I shall, of course, since I feel it my duty to doso, but I can have someone pass the winter with me, and can make frequent trips to Washington."
Mrs. Stewart paused for breath. Peggy did not speak one word, but with a final dazed look at her aunt, turned and entered the house.
CHAPTER IVHOSTILITIES RESUMED
As Peggy left the piazza her aunt's eyes followed her with an expression which held little promise for the girl's future happiness should it be given into Mrs. Stewart's keeping. A more calculating, triumphant one, or one more devoid of any vestige of affection for Peggy it would have been hard to picture. As her niece disappeared Mrs. Stewart's lips formed just two words, "little fool," but never had she so utterly miscalculated. She was sadly lacking in a discrimination of values. Peggy had chosen one of two evils; that of losing her temper and saying something which would have outraged her conception of the obligations of a hostess, or of getting away by herself without a moment's delay. She felt as though she were strangling, or that some horrible calamity threatened her. Hurrying to her own room she flung herself upon her couch and did that which Peggy Stewart was rarely known to do: buried her head in the cushions and sobbed. Not the sobs of a thwarted, peevish girl, but the deepergrief of one who feels hopeless, lonely and wretched. Never in her life had she felt like this. What was the meaning of it?
Those who were older and more experienced, would have answered at once: Here is a girl, not yet sixteen years of age, who has led a lonely life upon a great estate, remote from companions of her own age, though adored by the servants who have been upon it as long as she can remember. She has been regarded as their mistress whose word must be law because her mother's was. Her education has been conducted along those lines by an old gentleman who believes that the southern gentlewoman must be the absolute head of her home.
About this time there enters her little world a woman whose every impulse stands for motherhood at its sweetest and best, and who has helped all that is best and truest in the young girl to develop, guiding her by the beautiful power of affection. All has been peace and harmony, and Peggy is rapidly qualifying in ability to assume absolute control in her father's home.
Then, with scarcely a moment's warning, there is dropped into her home and daily life a person with whom she cannot have anything in common, from whom she intuitively shrinks and cannot trust.
Under such circumstances the present climax is not surprising.
Peggy's whole life had in some respects been a contradiction and a cry for a girl's natural heritage—a mother's all-comprehending love. The love that does not wait to be told of the loved one's needs and happiness, but which lives only to foresee what is best for her and to bring it to pass, never mind at what sacrifice to self. Peggy had missedthatlove in her life and not all the other forms combined had compensated.
Until the previous year she had never felt this; nor could she have put it into words even at the present moment. She only knew that in Polly's companionship she had been very, very happy and that she was terribly lonely without her. That in Mrs. Harold she had found a friend whom she had learned to love devotedly and trust implicitly, and that in the brief time Mrs. Howland, Polly's mother, had been in Annapolis and at New London, she had caught a glimpse of a little world before undreamed of; a world peculiarly Polly's and her mother's and which no other human being invaded. Mrs. Howland had just such a little world for each of her daughters and for the son-in-law whom she loved so tenderly. It was a world sacred to the individual who dwelttherein with her. There was a common world in which all met in mutual interests, but she possessed the peculiar power of holding for each of her children their own "inner shrine" which was truly "The Holy of Holies."
Although Peggy had known and loved Mrs. Harold longest, there was something in Mrs. Howland's gentle unobtrusive sweetness, in her hidden strength, which drew Peggy as a magnet and for the first time in her life she longed for the one thing denied her: such a love as Polly claimed.
But it seemed an impossibility, and her nearest approach to it lay in Mrs. Harold's affection for her.
Peggy was not ungrateful, but what had befallen the usual order of things? Was this aunt, with whom, try as she would, she could not feel anything in common, about to establish herself in the home, every turn and corner of which was so dear to her, and utterly disrupt it? For this Peggy felt pretty sure she would do if left a free hand. Already she had most of the old servants in a state of ferment, if not open hostility. They plainly regarded her as an interloper, resented her assumption of rule and her interference in the innumerable little details of the household economy. Her very evident lack of the qualities which, according totheir standards, stood for "de true an' endurin' quality raisin'," made them distrust her.
Now the "time was certainly out of joint" and poor little Peggy began to wonder if she had to complete the quotation.
All that has been written had passed like a whirlwind through Peggy's harassed brain in much less time than it has taken to put it on paper. It was all a jumble to poor Peggy; vague, yet very real; understood yet baffling. The only real evidences of her unhappiness and doubt were the tears and sobs, and these soon called, by some telepathic message of love and a life's devotion, the faithful old nurse who had been the comforter of her childish woes. For days Mammy had been "as res'less an' onsettled as a yo'ng tuckey long 'bout Thanksgivin' time," as she expressed it, and had found it difficult to settle down to her ordinary routine of work during the preceding two weeks. She prowled about the house and the premises "fer all de 'roun worl' like yo' huntin' speerits," declared Aunt Cynthia, the cook.
"Huh!" retorted Mammy, "I on'y wisht I could feel dat dey was frien'ly ones, but I has a percolation dat dey's comin' frombelowstidderabove."
So perhaps this explains why she went up to Peggy's room at an hour which she usuallyspent in her own quarters mending. Long before she reached the room she became aware of sounds which acted upon her as a spark to a powder magazine, for Mammy's loving old ears lay very close to her heart.
With a pious "Ma Lawd-God-Amighty, what done happen?" she flew down the broad hall and, being a privileged character, entered the room without knocking. The next second she was holding Peggy in her arms and almost sobbing herself as she besought her to tell "who done hurt ma baby? Tell Mammy what brecken' yo' heart, honey-chile."
For a few moments Peggy could not reply, and Mammy was upon the point of rushing off for Harrison when Peggy laid a detaining hand upon her and commanded:
"Stop, Mammy! You must not call Harrison or anyone else. There is really nothing the matter. I'm just a silly girl to act like this and I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself." Then she wiped her eyes and strove to check a rebellious sob.
"Quit triflin'! Kingdom-come, is yo' think I'se come ter ma dotage? When is I see you a cryin' like dis befo'? Not sense yo' was kitin' roun' de lot an' fall down an' crack yo' haid. Yo' ain' been de yellin', squallin' kind, an' when yo' begins at dis hyar day an' age fer ter shedtears dar's somethin' pintedly wrong, an' yo' needn' tell me dar ain't. Now out wid it."
Mammy was usually fiercest when she felt most deeply and now she was stirred to the very depth of her soul.
"Why, Mammy, I don't believe I could tell you what I'm crying for if I tried," and Peggy smiled as she rested her head upon the shoulder which had never failed her.
"Well, den, tell me what yo'ain'tcryin' fo', kase ef yo' ain't cryin' fer somethin' yo'wantyo' shore mus' be a-crying fo' somethin' yo'don'twant," was Mammy's bewildering argument. "An' I bait yo' I ain't gotter go far fer ter ketch de thing yo'don'want neither," and the old woman looked ready to deal with that same cause once it came within her grasp.
Peggy straightened up. This order of things would never do. If she acted like a spoiled child simply because someone to whom she had taken an instinctive dislike had come into her home, she would presently have the whole household demoralized.
"Mammy, listen to me."
Instinctively the blood of generations of servitude responded to Peggy's tone.
"I have been terribly rude to a guest. I lost my temper and I'm ashamed of myself."
"What did you say to her, baby?"
"I didn't say anything, I just acted outrageously."
"An' whatshebeen a-sayin' ter yo'?"
Peggy only colored.
Mammy nodded her bead significantly. "Ain't Iknowdat! Yo' cyant tellmenothin' 'bout de Stewart blood. No-siree! I know it from Alphy to Omegy; backards an' forrards. Now we-all kin look out fer trouble ahead. But I'se got dis fer ter say: Some fools jist nachelly go a-prancin' an' a-cavortin' inter places whar de angils outen heaven dassent no mo'n peek. If yo' tells me I must keep ma mouf shet, I'se gotter keep it shet, but Massa Neil is allers a projectin' 'bout ma safety-valve, an' don' yo' tie it down too tight, honey, er somethin' gwine bus' wide open 'fore long. Now come 'long an' wash yo' purty face. I ain' like fer ter see no tears-stains onyo'baby. No, I don'. Den yo' go git on Shashai an' call yo' body-gyard and 'Z'ritza an' yo' ride ten good miles fo' yo' come back hyer. Bydattime yo' git yo' min' settle down an' yo' stummic ready fo' de lunch wha' Sis' Cynthia gwine fix fo' yo'. I seen de perjections ob it an' it fair mak' ma mouf run water lak' a dawg's. Run 'long, honey," and Mammy led the way down the side stairs, and watched Peggy as she took a side path to the paddock.
As she was in and out of her saddle a dozen times a day she wore a divided skirt more than half the time—another of Mrs. Stewart's grievances—and upon reaching the paddock her whistle soon brought her pets tearing across it to her. Their greeting was warm enough to banish a legion of blue imps, and a joyous little laugh bubbled to her lips as she opened the paddock gate and let the trio file through. Then in the old way she sprang upon Shashai's back and with a gay laugh cried:
"Four bells for the harness house."
Away they swept, as Peggy's voice and knees directed Shashai, Tzaritza, who had joined Peggy as she stepped from the side porch, bounding on ahead with joyous barks.
Peggy called for a bridle, which Shelby himself brought, saying as he slipped the light snaffle into Shashai's sensitive mouth and the headstall over his ears:
"So you've bruck trainin', Miss Peggy, an' are a-going for a real old-time warm-up? Well, I reckon it's about time, an' the best thing you can do, for you look sort o' pinin' an' down-in-the-mouth. Light out, little girl, an' come back lookin' like you uster; the purtiest sight God ever created for a man, woman or child ter clap eyes on. Take good care of her, Shashai, and you too, Tzaritza,cause you won't get another like her very soon."
Shelby's eyes were quick to discern the traces of Peggy's little storm, and he was by no means slow in drawing deductions. Peggy blushed, but said:
"I guess Daddy was right when he said I'd better go to school this year. You-all will spoil me if I stay here. Good-by, dear old Shelby, I love everyone on the place even if they do spoil me," and away she swept, as bonny a little bareback rider as ever sat a horse.
Meanwhile, up at the house events were shaping with the rapidity of a moving picture show.
When Peggy left her so abruptly Madam Stewart sat still for a few moments, pondering her next step. She had arrived at some very definite conclusions and intended carrying them out without loss of time. Her first move in that direction led her into the library where she wrote a letter to her brother-in-law. It was while she was thus occupied that Mammy had found Peggy and sent her for her ride. Then Mammy sought Harrison. Ordinarily, Mammy would have died before consulting Harrison about anything concerning Peggy, but here was a common issue, and if Mammy did not know that a house divided against itself must fall, she certainly felt the force of that argument. In Harrison she found a sympathetic listener,for the old housekeeper had been made to feel Mrs. Stewart's presence in the house in hundreds of irritating little ways. Mammy told of finding Peggy in tears, though she could not, of course, tell their cause. But Harrison needed no cause: the tears in themselves were all the cause she required to know.
Their conversation took place in the pantry and at the height of Harrison's protest against the new order of things a footfall was heard in the dining-room beyond. Thinking it Jerome's and quite ready to add one more to their league of defenders of Peggy's cause, Harrison pushed open the swinging door and stepped into the dining-room with all of her New England-woman's nervous activity. Mrs. Stewart stood in the room surveying with a critical, calculating eye, every detail of its stately, chaste appointments, for nothing had ever been changed.
Mrs. Stewart looked up as Harrison bounced in.
"O Harrison, you are exactly the person I wished to speak with," she said. "There are to be a few changes made in Mr. Stewart's domestic arrangements. In future I shall assume control of his home and relieve Miss Peggy of all responsibility. You may come to me for all orders."
She paused, and for the moment Harrisonwas too dumbfounded to reply, while Mammy in the pantry, having overheard every word, was noiselessly clapping her old hands together and murmuring: "Ma Lawd! Ma Lawd!NowI knows de sou'ce ob dat chile's tears." Before Harrison could recover herself Mrs. Stewart continued:
"Dr. Llewellyn will be here tomorrow for the weekend, and as I am to be mistress of the household it is more seemly that I preside at the head of the table. Tell Jerome that I shall sit there in future. And now I wish you to take me through the house that I may know more of its appointments than I have thus far been able to learn."
Without a word Harrison led the way into the hall, and up the beautiful old colonial stairway.
Peggy's sitting-room and bed-room were situated at the south-east corner of the house overlooking the bay. Back of her bath and dressing-rooms were two guest rooms. A broad hall ran the length of the second story and upon the opposite side of it had been Mrs. Neil Stewart's pretty sitting-room, which corresponded with Peggy's and her bed-room separated from her husband's by the daintiest of dressing and bath-rooms. Neil Stewart's "den" was at the rear. Beyond were lavatories, linen-room,house-maid's room and every requirement of a well-ordered home.
Mrs. Peyton began by entering Peggy's sitting-room, a liberty she had not hitherto taken, but she felt pretty sure Peggy was not in the house. At any rate she had made her plunge and did not mean to be diverted from her object now. Martha Harrison was simply boiling with wrath at the intrusion.
"You are a wonderfully capable woman, Martha. I see I shall have very light duties," was Mrs. Peyton's patronizing comment.
"Harrison, if you please, ma'am," emphasized that person.
"Oh, indeed? As you prefer. Now let me see the rooms on the opposite side of the hall."
Perhaps had Mrs. Peyton asked Harrison to lead her into the little mausoleum, built generations ago in the whispering white pine grove upon the hill back of the house, it could not have been a greater liberty or sacrilege. Not so great, possibly. In all the nine years nothing had been changed. They were sacred to the entire household and especially sacred to Harrison who had held it her especial privilege to keep them immaculate. In the bed-room the toilet and dressing tables held the same articles Mrs. Neil had used; her work-table stood in the same sunny window. In the sitting-room thebooks she loved and had read again and again were in the case, or lying upon the tables where she had left them. It seemed as though she might have stepped from the room barely ten minutes before. There was nothing depressing about it. On the contrary, it impressed upon the observer the near presence of a sweet, cultivated personality. The sitting-room was a shrine for both Peggy and her father, and it was his wish that it be kept exactly as he had known and loved it during the ideal hours he had spent in it with wife and child. He and Peggy had spent many a precious one there since its radiant, gracious mistress had slept in the pine grove. Harrison crossed the hall and opened the door, still mute as an oyster. Mrs. Stewart swept in, Toinette, who had followed her, tearing across the room ahead of her and darting into every nook and corner. At that moment the obnoxious poodle came nearer her doom than she had ever come in all her useless life, for Harrison was a-quiver to hurl her through the open window.
"What charming rooms," exclaimed Madam, trailing languidly from one to the other, touching a book here, some exquisite curio there, the carved ivory toilet articles on the dresser. The morning sunlight, tempered by the green and white awnings at the great bowed-windowsfilled the tastefully decorated rooms with a restful glow. They were beautiful rooms in every sense of the word.
"Very charming indeed and very useless apparently. They seem not to have been occupied in months. They are far more desirable than those assigned to me at the North side of the house. The view of the bay is perfect. As I am to be here indefinitely, instead of one month only, you may have my things moved over to this suite, Harrison. I shall occupy it in future."
"Occupythissuite?" Harrison almost gasped the words.
"Certainly. Why not? You need not look as though I had ordered you to build a fire in the middle of the floor," and Mrs. Peyton laughed half scornfully.
"Excuse me, ma'am, but whenMr. Neilgives the order to move your things into this suite, I'll move them here. These was his wife's rooms and his orders to me was never to change 'em and I never shall 'tillhetells me to. There's some things in this world that can't be tampered with. Please call your dog, ma'am; she's scratchin' that couch cover to ribbons."
The enemy's guns were silenced for the time being. She picked up her poodle and swept from the room. Harrison paused only longenough to close all the doors, lock them and place the keys in her little hand bag. Then she departed to her own quarters to give vent to her pent-up wrath.
Mrs. Stewart retired to her own room.
The next evening Dr. Llewellyn arrived and when he took his seat at the table his gentle face was troubled: Mrs. Peyton had usurped Peggy's place at the head. Peggy sat opposite to him. She had accepted the situation gracefully, not one word of protest passing her lips and she did her best to entertain her guests. But poor old Jerome's soul was so outraged that for the first time in his life he was completely demoralized. Only one person in the entire household seemed absolutely and entirely satisfied and that was Harrison, and her self-satisfaction so irritated Mammy that the good old creature sputtered out:
"Kingdom come, is yo' gittin' ter de pint when yo' kin see sich gwines-on an' not r'ar right spang up an'sassdat 'oman?"
"Just wait!" was Harrison's cryptic reply.
CHAPTER VRUCTIONS!
Jerome had just passed a silver platter to Madam Stewart, his hands trembling so perceptibly as to provoke from her the words: "Have you a chill, Jerome?" as she conveyed to her plate some of Cynthia's delicately fried chicken.
Jerome made no answer, but started toward Peggy's chair. He never reached it, for at that moment a deep voice boomed in from the hall:
"Peggy Stewart, ahoy!"
With the joyous, ringing cry of:
"Daddy Neil! Oh, Daddy Neil!" Peggy sprang from the table to fling herself into her father's arms, and to startle him beyond words by bursting into tears. Never in all of his going to and fro, however long his absences from his home, had he met with such a reception as this. Invariably a smiling Peggy had greeted him and the present outbreak struck to the very depth of his soul, and did more in one minute to reveal to him the force of Harrison's letter than a dozen complaints. The tears betrayeda nervous tension of which even Peggy herself had been entirely unaware, and for Peggy to have reached a mental condition where nerves could assert themselves was an indication that chaos was imminent. For a moment she could only sob hysterically, while her father held her close in his arms and said in a tone which she had never yet heard:
"Why, Peggy! My little girl, my little girl, have you needed Daddy Neil as much as this?"
Peggy made a gallant rally of her self-control and cried:
"Oh, Daddy, and everybody, please forgive me, but I am so surprised and startled and delighted that I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm so ashamed of myself," and smiling through her tears she strove to draw away from her father that he might greet the others, but he kept her close within his circling left arm, as he extended his hand in response to the effusive greeting of his sister-in-law.
With what she hoped would be an apologetic smile for Peggy's untoward demonstration, Mrs. Stewart had risen to welcome him.
"We must make allowances for Peggy, dear Neil. You came so very unexpectedly, you know. I hardly thought my letter would be productive of anything so delightful for us all."
"I fear it was not wholly, Katherine. I hadseveral others also. How are you, Doctor? I see you haven't quite abandoned the ship. Well, I'm glad of that; I need my executive officer and my navigator also."
At the concluding words Mrs. Peyton smiled complacently. Who but she could fill that office? But Captain Stewart's next words dissipated that smile as the removal of a lantern slide causes the scene thrown upon the screen to vanish.
"Yes, indeed, my navigator must get busy. She's had a long leave, but I need her now and she's never failed me in heavy weather. She'll report for duty on the thirtieth, thank the powers which be. Hello, Jerome! What's rattled you like this? Next time I set my course for home I'd better send a wireless, or I'll demoralize the whole personnel," and Neil Stewart's hearty laugh brought a sympathetic smile to Dr. Llewellyn's and Peggy's lips.
And well it might, for in the background the minor characters in the little drama had filled a rôle all their own. In the doorway stood Harrison, bound to witness the outcome of her master-stroke and experiencing no small triumph in it. Behind her Mammy, with characteristic African emotion, was doing a veritable camp-meeting song of praise, though it was avoicelesssong, only her motions indicating thather lips were forming the words, "Praise de Lawd! Praise Him!" as she swayed and clasped her hands.
But Jerome outdid them all: At his first glimpse of the master he was so flustered that he nearly collapsed where he stood, and his platter had a perilous moment. Then, crying, "Glory be!" he beat a hasty retreat intending to place it upon his serving table, but growing bewildered in his joy, inadvertently set it upon a large claw-foot sofa which stood at the end of the dining-room, where Toinette, ever upon the alert, andnotbanished from the dining-room as poor Tzaritza had been, promptly pounced upon the contents, and in the confusion of the ensuing ten minutes laid the foundation for her early demise from apoplexy.
"Brace up, Jerome, I'm too substantial to be a ghost, and nothing short of one should bowl you over like this," were Captain Stewart's hearty words to the old man as he shook his hand.
"Asks yo' pardon, Massa Neil! I sho' does ask yo' pardon fer lettin' mysef git so flustrated, but we-all's so powerful pleased fer ter see yo', an' has been a-wanting yo' so pintedly, that—that—that—but, ma Lawd, I—I—I'se cla'r los' ma senses an', an—Hi! look yonder at dat cusséd dawgan'ma fried chicken!"
For once in her useless life Toinette had created a pleasing diversion. With a justifiable cry of wrath Jerome pounced upon her and plucked her from the platter, in which for vantage she had placed her fore feet. Flinging her upon the floor, he snatched up his dish and fled to the pantry, Neil Stewart's roars of laughter following him. Toinette rolled over and over and then fled yelping into her mistress' lap to spread further havoc by ruining a delicate silk gown with her gravy-smeared feet. Tzaritza, who had followed her master into the room, looked upon the performance with a superior surprise. Neil Stewart laid a caressing hand upon the beautiful head and said laughingly:
"You'd blush for that little snippin-frizzle if you could, wouldn't you, old girl? Well, it's up to you to teach her better manners. She's young and flighty. The next time she starts in on any such rampage, just pick her up and carry her out, as any naughty child should be carried. Understand?"
"Woof-woof," answered Tzaritza, deep down in her throat.
"She's wise all right. After this you can leave that midget of yours in her care, Katherine. But now let's get busy. I'm upon the point of famishing. Come, Peggy, honey;rally your forces and serve your old Daddy."
Peggy turned toward her aunt. Not until that moment had her father been aware of the change made at his table. Then it came to him in a flash, and Mrs. Peyton was hardly prepared for the change which overspread his countenance as he asked:
"Peggy, why have you allowed your aunt to assume the obligations of hostess? Have you lost your ability to sit at the head of my table, daughter?"
Poor Peggy! It was well she understood or she would have been nearly heartbroken at the rebuke. Mrs. Peyton answered for her:
"Little Peggy had far too much upon her young shoulders, dear Neil. So I have volunteered to relieve her of some of her duties. I am happy to be able to do so."
"Indeed, Katherine, we are all under deep obligation to you, I am sure, but Peggy hardly seems overborne by her burdens, and it is my wish that my daughter shall preside in her mother's place at my table. Jerome, Mrs. Stewart is to be relieved of this obligation after this meal. You are to be quite free of all responsibility during your visit with us, Katherine. And now, little girl, let me look at you. July, August, and, let me see, twenty-five days of September since I left you? Nearly threemonths. You manage to do remarkable things in a brief time, little daughter. But I fancy by the time I get back here again they will be more remarkable. Great plans are simmering for you; great plans," and her father nodded significantly across at her.
Peggy was too happy to even ask what they were. She could only smile and nod back again.
Meanwhile Mrs. Stewart had used her napkin to scrub off her besmirched poodle's feet and had then surreptitiously thumped her down upon her lap where the table-cloth would conceal her. At Captain Stewart's concluding words she felt her hopes revive a trifle. She was a fair actress when it served her turn. So now smiling across the table she said:
"So you have decided to consider my suggestion, Neil?"
"In one respect, yes, Katherine. I see plainly that things can no longer go on as they have been going. Llewellyn concurs in that." He glanced toward the Doctor, who nodded gravely.
"I do most fully. Our halcyon days must end, I fear, as all such days do eventually, and we must meet the more prosaic side of life. Let us hope it will assume a pleasing form. I am loth to hand in my resignation as Dominie Exactus, however," he ended with a smile for Peggy.
Peggy looked puzzled, and glanced inquiringly from one to the other. Her father stretched forth a hand and laid it over hers which rested upon the edge of the table:
"Smooth out the kinks in your forehead, honey. Nothing distressing is to happen."
"Hardly," agreed Mrs. Stewart. "On the contrary, if your father acts upon my suggestion something very delightful will be the outcome, I am sure. I feel intuitively that you approve of my plan regarding the school, Neil."
Peggy started slightly, and looked at her father. He nodded and smiled reassuringly, then turning toward his sister-in-law, replied:
"Your letter, Katherine, only served to convince me that Peggy must now have a broader horizon than Severndale, or even Annapolis affords. Dr. Llewellyn and I talked it over when I was home over a year ago, and again last June. When we first discussed it we were about as much at sea as the 'three wise men of Gotham' who launched forth in a tub. We needed a better craft and a pilot, and we needed them badly, I tell you, and at that time we hadn't sighted either. Then the 'Sky Pilot' took the job out of our hands and He's got it yet, I reckon. At any rate, indications seem to point that way, for on my way down here He ran me alongside my navigator and it didn'ttake her long to give me my bearings. She got on board the limited at Newark, N. J., and we rode as far as Philly together. She had three of her convoys along and they're all to the good, let me tell you."
"Oh, Daddy, did you really meet Mrs. Harold and Polly, and who was with them?" broke in Peggy eagerly.
"I surely did, little girl; Mrs. Harold, Polly, Ralph and Durand. She was on her way for a week's visit with some relatives just out of Philly—in Devon, I believe, a sort of house-party, she's chaperoning—and a whole bunch of the old friends are to be there. Well, I got the 'Little Mother' all to myself from Newark to Philly and we went a twenty-knot clip, I tell you, for big as I am, I was just bursting to unload my worries upon someone, and that little woman seems born to carry the major portion of all creation's. She gets them, any way, and they don't seem to feaze her a particle. She bobs up serene and smiling after ever comber. But I've yet to see the proposition she wouldn't try to tackle. Oh, we talked for fair, let me tell you, and in those two hours she put more ideas into this wooden old block of mine than it's held in as many months. Did your ears burn this afternoon, Peggy? You are pretty solid inthatdirection, little girl, and you'll never have abetter friend in all your born days, and don't you ever forgetthatfact. Well, the upshot is, that next Friday, one week from today, Middie's Haven will have its tenant back and, meantime, she is to write some letters and lay a train foryourwelfare, honey. That school plan is an excellent plan, Katherine, but not a New York school: New York is too far away from homeandMrs. Harold. Peggy will go to Washington this winter. Hampton Roads is not far from Washington and the —— will put in there a number of times this winter. That givesmea chance to visit my girl oftener and also gives Peggy a chance to visit Mrs. Harold, and run out here now and again if she wishes, though the place will be practically closed up for the winter. It was very good of you to offer to remain here but I couldn't possibly accept that sacrifice; for all your interests lie in New York, as you stated in your letter to me. You still have your apartments there, you tell me, and to let you bury yourself down here in this lonely place would be simply outrageous. Even Peggy has been here too long, without companions."
Neil Stewart paused to take some nuts from the dish which Jerome, now recovered and beaming, held for him. Mrs. Stewart could have screamed with baffled rage, for, now thatit was too late, she saw that she had quite overshot the mark, and given her brother-in-law a complete advantage over her designs. "And that hateful, designing cat!" as she stigmatized Mrs. Harold "had completed her defeat." She had gauged her brother-in-law as "a perfect simpleton where a woman was concerned," and never had she so miscalculated. Hewaseasygoing when at home on leave, or off on one of his outings, as he had been when she met him in New London. Why not? When he worked he worked with every particle of energy he possessed, but when he "loafed," as he expressed it, he cast all care to the winds and was like an emancipated school-boy. It was the school-boy side of his nature she had gauged. She knew nothing of Neil Stewart the Naval Officer and man; hadn't the very faintest conception of his latent force once it was stirred. And she little guessed how shehadstirred it by her letter written the morning she had made Peggy so unhappy. It was the one touch needed to bring the climax and it had brought it with a rush which Mrs. Peyton had little anticipated. What the outcome might have been had Neil Stewart not met Mrs. Harold on that train is impossible to surmise further than that he had fully decided to free himself of all connection with Peyton's widow. He had always dislikedand distrusted her, but now he detested her. Peggy's letters had revealed far more than she guessed, though they had not held one intended criticism. She had written just as she had written ever since she promised him when he visited her the previous year, to send "a report of each day, accurate as a ship's log." But she could not write of the daily happenings without giving him a pretty graphic picture of Mrs. Stewart's gradual usurpation, and Harrison had felt no compunction in expressingherviews.
And so the "best laid plans o' mice and (wo)men" had "gone agley" in a demoralizing manner, and Neil Stewart had come down to Severndale "under full headway," and wasted no time in "laying hold of the helm." That talk upon the train had been what he termed "one real old heart-to-hearty," for Mrs. Harold had foreseen just such a crisis and felt under no obligation to refrain from speaking her mind where Mrs. Stewart was concerned. She had seen just such women before. Captain Stewart had asked her to read the letters sent to him. She nearly had hysterics over Harrison's, but Peggy's brought tears to her eyes, for she loved the girl very dearly and understood her well. Mrs. Stewart's letter made her eyes snap and her mouth set firmly, as she said:
"Captain Stewart, you have asked my advice and I shall give it exactly as though Peggy were my daughter, for I could hardly love her and Polly more dearly if they were my own children. I am under every obligation of affection to Peggy but not the slightest to Mrs. Stewart, and from all I observed in New London she is by no means the woman to have control over a girl like Peggy. She is one of the most lovable girls I have ever known, but at the same time has one of the most distinct personalities and the strongest wills. She can be easily guided by combined wisdom and affection, but she would be ruined by association with a calculating, unrefined, or capricious nature, and, pardon my frankness, I consider Mrs. Peyton Stewart all of these. Peggy needs association with other girls—that is only natural—and we must secure it at once for her."
Neil Stewart laid her words to heart, and the ensuing week brought to pass some radical changes.
On the thirtieth of September the whole brigade of midshipmen came pouring back to Annapolis, the academic year beginning on October first.
On the thirtieth also came Mrs. Glenn Harold and her niece Polly Howland, brown, happy and refreshed by their summer's outing, and Pollyeager to meet her old friends at the Academy and her chum Peggy.
October first falling upon Sunday that year the work at the Academy would not begin until Monday, and, although the midshipmen had to report on September thirtieth, Sunday was to a certain extent a holiday for them and on that afternoon a rare treat was planned for some of them by Captain Stewart.
On Sunday morning Neil Stewart, with Mrs. Stewart and Peggy drove into Annapolis to attend service at the Naval Academy Chapel where their entrance very nearly demoralized Polly Howland, no hint of their intention having been given her. They were a little late in arriving and the service had already begun. As Polly was rising from her knees after the first prayer Peggy was ushered into the pew, and Polly,Pollyunder all circumstances, cried impulsively:
"Oh, lovely!" her voice distinctly audible in the chancel. Whether the Chaplain felt himself lauded for the manner in which he had read the prayer, or was quick to guess the cause of that unusual response, it is not necessary to decide. Certain, however, were two or three distinct snickers from some pews under the gallery, and Polly nearly dove under the pew in front of her.
There was no chance for the thousand and one topics of vital importance to be even touched upon while the service was in progress, but once the recessional rolled forth Peggy's and Polly's tongues were loosened and went a-galloping.
"Oh, Daddy has a plan for the afternoon which is the dearest ever," announced Peggy, the old light back in her eyes, and the old enthusiasm in her voice.
"Tell it right off then. Captain Stewart's plans are the most wonderful ever. I'll never forget New London," cried Polly.
"Why, he wants you and the Little Mother and Durand and Ralph and Jean and Gordon—"
"Gordon?" echoed Polly, a question in her eyes.
Peggy nodded an emphatic little nod, her lips closing in a half-defiant, half who-dares-dispute-his-judgment little way, then the smile returned to the pretty mouth and she continued, "Yes, Gordon Powers and his room-mate, great, big Douglas Porter, and Durand's new room-mate, Bert Taylor, he comes from Snap's old home, so Daddy learned, to come out to Severndale this afternoon for a real frolic."
She got no further for they had reached the terrace in front of the Chapel by that time where greetings were being exchanged betweenmany mutual friends and the two girls, so widely known to all connected with the Academy were eagerly welcomed back.
Meanwhile, out on the main walk the Brigade had broken ranks and the midshipmen were hurrying up to greet their friends. Captain Stewart was a favorite with all, and one of the very few officers who could recall how the world looked to him whenhewas a midshipman. Consequently, he was able to enter into the spirit and viewpoint of the lads and was always greeted with an enthusiasm rare in the intercourse between the midshipmen and the officers. Mrs. Harold was their "Little Mother," as she had been for the past five years, and Peggy and Polly the best and jolliest of companions and chums, their "co-ed cronies," as they called them.
Mrs. Stewart they had met in New London, but there was a very perceptible difference in their greeting to that lady: It was the formal, perfunctory bow and handclasp of the superficially known midshipman; not the hearty, spontaneous one of the boy who has learned to trust and love someone as Mrs. Harold's boys loved and trusted her.
The crowd which had poured out of the Chapel was soon dispersed, as everybody had something to call him elsewhere. Our groupsauntered slowly toward the Superintendent's home where Captain Stewart left them and went in to make his request for the afternoon's frolic. It was promptly granted and orders were given to have a launch placed at his disposal at two-thirty P.M.
Such a treat, when least expected, sent the boys into an ecstatic frame of mind, and when the bugle sounded for dinner formation they rushed away to their places upon old Bancroft's Terrace as full of enthusiasm as though averaging eight and ten instead of eighteen and twenty years of age.