Peg O' My Heart Part 40

Peg sprang up breathlessly and frightenedly. Now that Mr. Hawkes was going she felt deserted. He had at least been gentle and considerate to her. She tugged at his sleeve and looked straight up into his face with her big blue eyes wide open and pleaded:

"Plaze, sir, take me with ye and send me back to New York. I'd rather go home. Indade I would. I don't want to be a lady. I want me father.

Plaze take me with you."

"Oh--come--come" Mr. Hawkes began.

"I want to go back to me father. Indade I do." Her eyes filled with tears. "He mightn't like me to stay here now that me uncle's dead."

"Why, it was your uncle's last wish that you should come here. Your father will be delighted at your good fortune." He gently pressed her back into the chair and smiled pleasantly and rea.s.suringly down at her.

Just when he had negotiated everything most satisfactorily to have Peg endeavour to upset it all was most disturbing. He went on again: "Your aunt will do everything in her power to make you feel at home. Won't you, Mrs. Chichester?"

"Everything!" said Mrs. Chichester, as if she were walking over her own grave.

Peg looked at her aunt ruefully: her expression was most forbidding: at Ethel's expressive back; lastly at Alaric fitting a cigarette into a gold mounted holder. Her whole nature cried out against them. She made one last appeal to Mr. Hawkes:

"DO send me back to me father!"

"Nonsense, my dear Miss O'Connell. You would not disappoint your father in that way, would you? Wait for a month. I'll call on the first and I expect to hear only the most charming things about you. Now, good-bye,"

and he took her hand.

She looked wistfully up at him:

"Good-bye, sir. And thank ye very much for bein' so kind to me."

Hawkes bowed to Mrs. Chichester and Ethel and went to the door.

"Have a cab?" asked Alaric.

"No, thank you," replied the lawyer. "I have no luggage. Like the walk.

Good-day," and Peg's only friend in England pa.s.sed out and left her to face this terrible English family alone.

"Your name is Margaret," said Mrs. Chichester, as the door closed on Mr. Hawkes.

"No, ma'am--" Peg began, but immediately corrected herself; "no, aunt--I beg your pardon--no aunt--my name is Peg," cried she earnestly.

"That is only a CORRUPTION. We will call you Margaret," insisted Mrs.

Chichester, dismissing the subject once and for all. But Peg was not to be turned so lightly aside. She stuck to her point.

"I wouldn't know myself as Margaret--indade I wouldn't. I might forget to answer to the name of Margaret." She stopped her pleading tone and said determinedly: "My name IS Peg." Then a little softer and more plaintively she added: "Me father always calls me Peg. It would put me in mind of me father if you'd let me be called Peg, aunt." She ended her plea with a little yearning cry.

"Kindly leave your father out of the conversation," snapped the old lady severely.

"Then it's all I will LAVE him out of!" cried Peg, springing up and confronting the stately lady of the house.

Mrs. Chichester regarded her in astonishment and anger.

"No TEMPER, if you please," and she motioned Peg to resume her seat.

Poor Peg sat down, breathing hard, her fingers locking and unlocking, her staunch little heart aching for the one human being she was told not to refer to.

This house was not going to hold her a prisoner if her father's name was to be slighted or ignored; on that point she was determined. Back to America she would go if her father's name was ever insulted before her. Mrs. Chichester's voice broke the silence:

"You must take my daughter as your model in all things."

Peg looked at Ethel and all her anger vanished temporarily. The idea of taking that young lady as a model appealed to her as being irresistibly amusing. She smiled broadly at Ethel. Mrs. Chichester went on:

"Everything my daughter does you must try and imitate. You could not have a better example. Mould yourself on her."

"Imitate her, is it?" asked Peg innocently with a twinkle in her eye and the suggestion of impishness in her manner.

"So far as lies in your power," replied Mrs. Chichester.

A picture of Ethel struggling in Brent's arms suddenly flashed across Peg, and before she could restrain herself she had said in exact imitation of her cousin:

"Please don't! It is so hot this morning!"

Then Peg laughed loudly to Ethel's horror and Mrs. Chichester's disgust.

"How dare you!" cried her aunt.

Peg looked at her a moment, all the mirth died away.

"Mustn't I laugh in this house?" she asked.

"You have a great deal to learn."

"Yes, aunt."

"Your education will begin to-morrow."

"Sure that will be foine," and she chuckled.

"No levity, if you please," said her aunt severely.

"No, aunt."

"Until some decent clothes can be procured for you we will find some from my daughter's wardrobe."

"Sure I've a beautiful dhress in me satchel I go to Ma.s.s in on Sundays.

It's all silk, and--"

Mrs. Chichester stopped her:

"That will do. Ring, Alaric, please."

As Alaric walked over to press the electric b.u.t.ton he looked at Peg in absolute disgust and entire disapproval. Peg caught the look and watched him go slowly across the room. He had the same morbid fascination for her that some uncanny elfish creature might have. If only her father could see him! She mentally decided to sketch Alaric and send it out to her father with a full description of him.

Mrs. Chichester again demanded her attention.