Fernley House Part 6

"I should think not!" said Margaret, taking the object from his hand.

"Why, it is a pair of curling-tongs. What queer things! No inscription on these; there isn't room for one. Here is a piece of paper in the box, though."

She took up a yellowish sc.r.a.p, and read: "'My niece Jemima's curling-tongs, with which she, being impatient to make a Show above her Sisters, did burn off one Side of her Hair. Preserved as a Warning to young Women by me, Tabitha Montfort. 1803.' Poor Jemima! She was punished enough, without being held up to posterity in this way."

"She was an extravagant young lady," said Hugh, "with her silver tongs; I think it may have been good for her soul, if not her hair, to suffer this infliction. Are you going to keep these out, Margaret, for use? I do hope you will be more careful than Aunt Jemima was. Your hair--excuse me!--looks as if you had not used the irons for some time."

Margaret laughed, and patted the smooth waves of her hair. "It _is_ some time!" she said. "Yours, on the other hand, Hugh, has more curl than may be altogether natural. I may have suspected you of the tongs, but at least I have had the charity to keep my suspicions to myself."

"You are extremely good, Miss Montfort. What have you got hold of now?"

"'Dear Johnny's Rattle!'" said Margaret, reading the label on a small box. "I wonder if that was Uncle John. See! silver bells; what a sweet tone!"

She shook a merry peal from the tiny bells. Hugh, who had been rummaging at the other end of the cupboard, replied with a clear blast blown on a small silver trumpet, which he now held up in triumph. "Here we are!" he cried. "This is the instrument for me. This was presented to Captain Hugh Montfort of the navy. What on earth could the gallant commander do with this at sea?"

"Whistle for a wind, of course," said Margaret, merrily. "What else?

Come here and look at Grandfather Montfort's gold-bowed spectacles; they are big enough for an ox."

So the talk went on merrily, and box after box, bag after bag, was opened, sometimes with astonis.h.i.+ng results. The bygone Montforts seemed to have been fond of silver, and to have vied with one another in their ingenious applications of it to domestic uses.

Many of the objects had historic or personal interest, and the two cousins might have spent the day there, if Mr. Montfort had not suddenly appeared, asking whether he was to have any dinner or not. Margaret had her arms full by this time, while Hugh was trying his best to carry a splendid fruit-bowl, a salver, two pitchers, and three vases, all at once. Mr. Montfort burst out laughing at sight of the pair. "Ca.s.sim and Ali Baba!" he cried. "And I, the Robber Captain, with not a single one of all the Forty Thieves at my back. Margaret, for charity's sake! you are not going to bring all that rubbish into the house? Isn't there enough already? I'm sorry I told you anything about it."

Margaret looked up, guilty but happy, from her effort at capturing a fourth vase with her little finger, the only one left unenc.u.mbered.

"Dear Uncle, you never would be so cruel!" she said. "See! I have only taken one chocolate-pot, and there are five, such beauties! Yes, I know we don't drink chocolate, but some of our guests might, and you would not have me neglect the guests, would you, Uncle John?"

"Sooner than have a guest take his chocolate from a china pot," said Mr.

Montfort, gravely, "I would go to the stake. At present, if you will pardon a very old joke, my dear Margaret, I should prefer to go to the beefsteak, which I have reason to think is on the table at this moment.

Come out, both of you young thieves, and let Inigo Jones go in again!"

CHAPTER VII.

MORE ARRIVALS

The great day came, the day of the arrivals. Jean was the first to come, by an early train, having arrived in New York the night before, where Hugh met her and brought her in triumph to Fernley. Margaret was at the door to receive her, and Peggy's sister had no cause to complain of the warmth of her reception. She was a slenderer Peggy, with the same blue, honest eyes, the same flaxen hair and rosy cheeks. Her dress, however, was far more tasteful and neat than Peggy's had been on her first arrival. Margaret recalled the green flannel, all b.u.t.toned awry, and looked with approval on Jean's pretty gray travelling-dress.

"Dear Jean!" she said, kissing her cousin warmly. "Most welcome to Fernley, dear child! Oh, I am so glad to see you! I have been counting the days, Jean."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE WAS A SLENDERER PEGGY, WITH THE SAME BLUE, HONEST EYES."]

"Oh, so have I!" said Jean, looking up with a shy, sweet smile,--Peggy's very own smile. Margaret kissed her again for it. "The last day did seem awfully long, Cousin Margaret--well, Margaret, then! I'm sure I never call you anything but Peggy's Margaret when I think of you. Peggy hasn't come yet?"

"Not yet. She will be here this afternoon, on the three o'clock train.

She knows nothing about your coming, Jean. In her very last letter, she was talking about being glad to come here, and so on, and she said the only thing wanting would be you."

"Oh, goody! I'm awfully glad--that she doesn't know, I mean. It will be just lovely to surprise her. Dear old Peg!" Jean relapsed into bashful silence when Margaret took her into the library to greet her uncle; but Mr. Montfort's smile and cordial greeting soon put her at her ease.

"Isn't he just lovely?" she whispered to Margaret, as they went up-stairs. "I was afraid he would be awful, somehow, but he isn't a bit; he's just lovely."

Margaret a.s.sented, making a mental note of the fact that this child seemed to have but two adjectives in her vocabulary. "Peggy will see to that!" she said to herself. "Peggy has improved so wonderfully in her English this last year. She will be quicker than I to notice and take up the little mistakes."

This was not strictly true, though modest Margaret meant it so. Peggy certainly had learned much at school, but her teachers had no expectation of her becoming an eminent English scholar.

"I have put you with Peggy," said Margaret, leading the way into the pretty room, hung with red-poppy chintz, where Peggy had spent a few sad and many happy hours. "I thought you would rather be together."

"Oh, yes, indeed! You are awfully kind, Cous--Margaret. I haven't seen Peggy for a year, you know. We missed her awfully at Christmas, of course, but she had a lovely time here; and it would have been awful if she had come home and got the measles, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, we did have a very good time. The children were here,--Basil and Susan D.,--and they and Peggy were fast friends. Oh, yes, it was a great holiday. Now, dear, you will want to rest a little, so I will leave you. Peggy will not be here till after lunch, so you will have time for a good rest, and to explore the garden, too, if you like. I am going now to arrange my flowers."

"Oh, might I help? I am not a bit tired, and I just love to arrange flowers. Do let me help, Margaret!"

"Very well," said Margaret, with a little inward sigh. She had her own ideas, and very definite ones, about the arrangement of flowers, in which she had exquisite taste; and her recollection of the way in which Peggy used to squeeze handfuls of blossoms tight into a vase, without regard to color or form, made her dread the a.s.sistance so heartily proffered; but Jean was quicker than Peggy had been at her age, and one glance at Margaret's first "effect," a rainbow combination of sweet-peas, showering over the side of a crystal bowl, filled her with ambition to emulate its beauty. The morning pa.s.sed happily and busily, the more so that Hugh came in presently, with a chapter of Th.o.r.eau that Margaret "really must hear!" He read well, and his taste and Margaret's being much alike, they spent many pleasant hours together, he reading aloud, she with her flowers or her work. Jean, who had never heard of Th.o.r.eau, and was not bookish, tried to listen, but did not make much of it. She fell to meditating instead, and her bright eyes wandered curiously from one intent face to the other. Hugh never thought of reading aloud at home. To be sure, he was the only one who cared about reading, or had time for it. He and Margaret seemed to know each other very well, seeing what a short time he had been here. Jean, with all the eager romance of fifteen, straightway began the building of an air-castle, which seemed to her a fine structure indeed. Meantime, Hugh and Margaret, all unconscious of her scrutiny, were enjoying themselves extremely.

"'As polis.h.i.+ng expresses the vein in marble and grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. . . . When we are in health, all sounds fife and drum to us; we hear notes of music in the air, or catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the dawn. Marching is when the pulse of the hero beats in unison with the pulse of Nature, and he steps to the measure of the universe; then there is true courage and invincible strength.'"

"How beautiful that is!" said Margaret.

"Yes; that is the particular pa.s.sage I wanted to read to you. Have you ever had that feeling, fancying that you wake to the sound of music? I often have, when I have been sleeping out in the open--never within doors."

"No," said Margaret, "I don't think I ever have, Hugh; but what a pleasant thing it must be! I have never slept in the open, but even if I should, I fear my waking would be plain prose, like myself."

Hugh laughed, and glanced at her affectionately. "I haven't found much prose about you, Margaret," he said. "If I had, I should not have read you my secrets when Th.o.r.eau tells them for me. That reminds me, do you sing? I have not heard you, have I?"

"No; I wish I did, for I love music very much. Oh, I sing a very little, enough to join in a chorus--if there ever were a chorus at Fernley. I used to enjoy Rita's singing intensely; she has a very sweet voice."

"Some one was singing last night," Hugh went on; "I don't know why, but this pa.s.sage reminds me--I heard a woman's voice singing,--a remarkable voice."

"Indeed? Where were you? Not in your room? I am sure there is no one in the house who sings."

"No; it was pretty warm, and the moon--well, you remember, it was all you could do to go to bed yourself, Margaret. After Virtue, in the shape of yourself and Uncle John, had gone to bed, Vice, in my shape, wandered about the garden, I don't know how long. It was wonderful there, with the trees, and the smell of the roses and box, and--and the whole thing, you know. Down at the foot of the garden, over in the meadow below, some one was singing; some one with a remarkable voice; rather deep-toned, not loud, and yet full, with an extraordinary degree of melody; or, so it seemed at a distance. I wondered who it was, that was all. You have no idea, I suppose?"

"No! I wonder too, very much. No one from this house, I am sure of that. Now that I think of it, though, Polly sings--Polly, the under housemaid; she has a pretty little bird-like voice, but nothing such as you describe. I'll make inquiries, though--"

"Oh, pray don't!" said Hugh, hastily, "I'd rather not! I--I mean, of course, it is not of the smallest consequence, Margaret. It is pleasant to hear singing at night, but perhaps all the pleasanter when the singer is unseen and unknown. Now let us go on with our Th.o.r.eau."

"Margaret! Margaret! Margaret!"

It was all Peggy could say at first. All the way up the avenue her heart had been beating high; at sight of the brown chimney-stacks of Fernley, it seemed to give a great jump up in her throat; and when the carriage swept round the curve, and she saw the whole front of the great house, and Margaret, her own Margaret, standing on the steps, with arms outstretched to welcome her, there was nothing for it but to cry out, with the full power of her healthy lungs. Almost before Bannan could stop the horses, she had scrambled out, and was on her cousin's neck, strangling her with hugs, and smothering her with kisses at the same instant. "Margaret! Margaret! I am really here! Do you know that I am really here?"

Speech was impossible for Margaret, but a voice from behind broke in:

"Come, come! what is all this? My niece done to death on my own doorstep? Let go, Peggy, and come and kill me instead. I am older, and shall be less missed."

Peggy loosed her hold, somewhat abashed, but received an embrace from her uncle so warm that she brightened again instantly.