Читать книгу My Lady Peggy Goes to Town - Frances Aymar Mathews - Страница 4

In the which My Lady Peggy sends off her

lover broken-hearted and promptly

falls into a swoon.

Kennaston Castle lies in Surrey. The Earl of Exham is master of the picturesque old pile and of the estate, and decidedly the slave of the very considerable number of debts which were up to His Lordship’s ears when he came of age, some four and fifty years ago, and by this time have reached almost to the crown of his head. He is also father to his son and heir, Kennaston of Kennaston, and to the heir’s tall twin, My Lady Peggy.

My Lady Peggy at this particular moment sits a-swinging on the top branch of a plum tree at the foot of the kitchen garden whence she commands a tolerable view of the highway.

“Impertinent sun!” cries Peggy, shading her handsome eyes with her hand as she stares off along the dusty road. “How is’t you dare shine when there’s no fine gentleman a-comin’ from the east; no gallant with disheveled locks, powdered shoulders, disordered mien, distracted looks, spurs a-digging into his beast, lips apart, heart beating like spent rabbit’s, and ‘Peggy, lovely Peggy,’ the clapper to his eager tongue at every jolt of his saddle, every rut of his way? Go cloud yourself, I say! since Sir Percy tarries. I’d have the skies weep, even if I can’t.” A peal of merriest laughter concludes this sally, and an apronful of plums comes tumbling down all over the other young woman who stands under the tree in waiting on her mistress.

“Is His Lordship not yet in sight, My Lady?” asks this one.

“Nay! that is not he, Chockey, and whisk me! but when His Lordship does come, he’ll find a very sorry entertainment. I swear, as dad says, I’ll not see him when he does appear, that will not I. Nay, shake not your head, girl. Is’t not true that Lady Peggy had once a lover?”

“’Twere truer say a dozen of that sort of gentry, Madam,” replies the buxom Chockey, as she sorts the plums, the best in her bonnet, the flaws over the wall where the chickens and hens cackle to the refuse.

“Well, well, twenty if you like! but one more favored than the rest? the properest sort of man at saddle, gun, line, wrestle, toast, song, or dance? honest, straightforward, beautiful, as dad says the angels are he saw painted on the walls at Rome. Speak I truth, eh, Chockey?”

“Madam, that you do.”

“And this paragon so worshiped his Peggy as, when she went off a-three months since to visit her godmother in Kent, he vowed by all the saints in the calendar he’d scarce survive until her return. False or true, eh, Chockey?”

My Lady Peggy punctuated this query by an accurate aim and hit, on the top of her waiting woman’s head, with an especially large plum.

“True, Madam,” dodging the fruit, and still with an eye on the road.

“And then, back comes My Lady Peggy, cutting short her stay in Kent, where she had much pleasure, to tell the truth, in the society of a very fine young nobleman.”

“Lawk, Madam! another?” interrupted the faithful Chockey.

“Another, Chock,” vouchsafes her mistress. “Sweet, sweet Sir Robin McTart!”

“Oh, My Lady!” cries the girl, vainly endeavoring to conceal a smile.

“Aye, Chock,” proceeds Peggy, “I say again, a sweet and most entrapping young man.”

“Madam, a squint eye, a wry nose, an underlip that hangs, a pair of fox-teeth, and a chin that’s gone a-huntin’ for his throat!”

“Tut, tut! Chock,” laughs Lady Peggy, leaning back in her leafy bower, “what’s all that to a nimble wit, a galloping conversation, and a faithful heart?” Lady Peggy’s tone is as light as the May breeze blowing her soft locks about her lovely blooming face, full of mockery, witchery,—and then a bit of a sigh, low as flowers’ whispers, and up with her drooped head higher than before, as in the half mannish tone her twinship and long play-fellowship with her brother have given her, she adds curtly—

“D’ye see aught coming yet, Chock?”

“No, My Lady, not yet,” answers the girl ruefully.

Peggy bites her lips until they hurt.

“As I was a-sayin’, Chock, your mistress cuts short her visit, sends word to her lover she’ll be home o’-Thursday, and, as I live! to-day’s the Monday after, and him still on the way! See him!” Peggy’s white teeth close tight, and her eyes flash, and her little hands clench. “Not I! Let him come now an’ he goes again faster than he ever traveled. The vain coxcomb! the deceitful, cozening, graceless poppet! He’ll ne’er set eyes on her he used to call his Peg again, or I die for’t.” And Peggy jumped to the ground.

“Madam! Madam!” exclaims Chockey, pointing joyfully to a cloud of dust far up the highway. “Look! Yonder comes Sir Percy! Don’t I know? Ain’t I watched his long roan any day this twelve month a-turnin’ by the lodge?”

Lady Peggy seizes Chockey’s arm, and runs breathless to the house; in, a-scrambling up the broad stairs to her chamber; a-pulling out of drawers from their chests; a-hunting of ribbons and fallals, combs, brushes, kerchiefs, perfumes, patches, powder, whatever else besides!

“Hurry, Chock, do my hair as he likes it!” urges Lady Peggy.

“Lawk, Madam! I thought you swore just now you’d never set eyes on Sir Percy again?”

“You thought! Bless you, Chock, never be a-wastin’ your time a-thinking where a woman’s concerned. When her heart steps up and lays hold the reins, the steed gallops to the goal; she’s always time to think after she’s acted.”

“Yes, Madam,” concurs Chockey, with a mental reservation back of her mouthful of pins. “There, My Lady, Your Ladyship’s hair is lovely; your Levantine gown becomes you like a pheasant do its plumage, and your eyes is a-shinin’ with love and—”

“Tut, girl! It’s anger, wrath, temper,—so!” Peggy marches up and down before the mirror, tossing her lovely head. “Thus attired, Chock, a lady can flout, deride, harass, and madden one of the opposite sex, as can she not do in cotton frock and fruit-stained apron. Give me my comfit box, I pray. Tell me how long Sir Percy now hath been cooling his heels in the drawing-room?”

“But little lacking the hour, Madam.”

“Good! I’d keep him there until Thursday, an I could. Now go tell him I’ll be with him presently.”

Chockey went.

Lady Peggy stood at the door ajar; she heard the impatient footsteps of her lover below, but yet she tarried, tapping her high red heel on the sill.

“Lud!” cried she, “an I show no proper spirit, Percy’s uncle’ll have the right of it when he says of one he’s never seen yet, ‘She’s a-hunting your bank-notes, boy! She’s heiress to debts, Sir, and by my life, Sir! I’ll never father-in-law her, so long as I’m above the sod, Sir!’ Despicable old wretch! as if ’twere not Percy I adored, without a care if he have a farthing to his fortune, or a roof to his head!”

And then Chockey, her palm warm with a sovereign, came with a rush.

“My Lady!” cries she, “’f you could see Sir Percy! White as milk, tremblin’, shakin’, chatterin’, a-begging and a-praying as you’ll condescend to go to him inside of another hour!”

“White, said you Chock?”

The girl nods vehemently.

“Shaking?”

“Aye, Madam.”

“Like to faint, think you?”

“Like to die, My Lady!”

Then Lady Peggy, laughing, humming such a gay snatch of a song, comes tripping down the stairs, pulling out her petticoats, stopping her lover’s outstretched arms of eagerness with such a splendid curtsy as any Court lady might have envied.

Still laughing.—“Lud! Sir Percy! is’t you?” amazed.

“Aye!” returns he, more amazed than she, and standing off with dropped arms. “Whom did you think it was?”

“Another. My woman’s stupid, and when she described the gallant that she did, it matched a different sort of him than you, methinks. However, let’s be civil; the crops are good, the game likely to be, later; the King in health,—prithee have a chair.” And Peggy swept a second curtsy, motioning toward a seat.

“Peggy! Sweet lips! Joy of my soul, what’s it? Not one warm word for him who only lives for thee? Who’s counted every hour since he parted from you, eh?” The young man draws nearer to her, and bends upon his knee, venturing, as he does so, to take her hand in his.

“Since you spent your time a-counting the hours, Sir, pray you, how many hours have passed since in this same room we parted, now three months, three weeks, and a few days since?”

Sir Percy sprang to his feet.

“Zounds! Peggy, and you flout me so?”

“Zounds! Sir Percy, did not I write you—and very well you know writing’s not my forte,—that I’d be home o’-Thursday?”

“Aye, but I never got it until this morning; then did I put spurs and leave my uncle in the lurch to fly to you.”

“What, Sir! not get my letter? An idle, silly, and foolish excuse. I sent it by Bickers, and trustier man ne’er breathed. He vowed me he’d put it in your hands.”

“Peggy, believe whichever of the two you like; but, in mercy tell me! What kept you so long away? I’ve heard rumors of another. Eh, Peg, ’tis not true, swear me ’tis not true? Oh, by the hue of my visage must you know what jealous pangs have racked me!”

Lady Peggy nods her head maliciously.

“Jealous pangs, forsooth! and you thought to medicine them, I dare be sworn, with vaulting the country over in the wake of Lady Diana Weston, the greatest heiress in the market! Bah, Sir, and you’ve heard rumors! I’ll match ’em. I’ve seen the minx from afar. She is handsome, Sir; your taste does you credit.”

“Peg, I swear ’twas but to please my uncle!” cries Sir Percy.

“Aye, and so displease me!”

“Nay, you know too well that I’ll never do that of my will; but my uncle, as I’ve told you, must be coaxed, and then when once I gain his consent to seeing you, our battle’s won. To see thee, Peg ’s to worship thee! Lord Gower’ll kneel when he beholds thee!”

“Our me no ours, Sir!” returned Peggy. “Let’s here and now make an end on’t all. You go pound the roads after your new mistress with her acres and notes, and I—”

“Well, you what?” asks the young man impetuously and yet with a certain grave dignity.

“Oh, I’ll acquit myself to a certainty with one that’s faithful as the sun, and gallant from his head to his heels.”

“What’s his name?” inquires Sir Percy in a hard, strained voice. “If he’s a better man, Peg, and you can say you love him—God keep me!”

“His name’s a very honorable and ancient one, he’s Sir Robin McTart, twenty-third Baronet!”

“Peggy!”

If a thunderbolt had fallen betwixt Peggy’s red shoes and his brown ones, Percy could not have been more astounded.

“Well, Sir?” returns she, scarce controlling the twitching of her lips.

“A milk-sop, molly-coddle! Oh Peggy, an you drop me, take a better man! Peg, you’re a-joking. Not that bumpkin! I’ve never seen him, but report has it he’s afeard if one of his own dogs looks him in the eye and bays!”

“Sir Percy, have you finished?” inquires Peggy with dignity.

“No, have I not! By my soul, Peg, an you pitch me to hell for that jackanapes, I’ll go to hell as fast as wine and dice, and cards and brawls, and usurers, and all that sort of crew can carry me! I’ll up to London, and one morning when your brother sends you word he’s found me with a rapier stuck in my throat, my pockets empty, and ‘Peggy’ writ on the scrap o’ paper a-lying over my heart, then you’ll believe Percy loved you!”

“Lud, Sir! Men are apt at such chatter, and a fortnight after, the vicar’s a-publishing their banns with the other lady!”

“Peg!” He takes her kerchief end, as it droops away from her pretty long throat, in his fingers; he looks down deep into her eyes; his voice shakes, so does his hand.

“Whatever betides, my bonny sweetheart, there’s only one that’ll ever have banns read with me, and that’s—” He takes her by surprise and by the shoulders, and squares her to the mirror in its niche.

“Farewell, Peg—since you send me, it’s the devil and dice, for by the Lord! I can’t live a quiet life lacking your smiles.”

In two minutes more Chockey, from the upper window, saw the long roan flying away from Kennaston faster than she ever galloped to it; and went down to find her young mistress a-lying prone in a fine wrinkled heap of silken gown, lace frills and furbelows, on the threadbare carpet of the big drawing-room.

To rush across the wide hall to the dining-room, seize a game-knife, back again; cut her mistress’s stays; pour a glass of cider down Lady Peggy’s throat, willy-nilly; clap her palms; pound her back; set her on her feet; and half carry her to her chamber, occupied not many minutes for stout Chockey.

“Lawk, My Lady,” said she, surveying the prostrate form on the couch, arms a-kimbo, eyes saucer-wide, “who’d ever have thought to see your haughty Ladyship so mauled for the sake of any gentleman as lives!”

Lady Peggy lay still, but presently, from the depths of the pillows she spoke.

“I ain’t mauled, Chock, not I!” Her Ladyship now sat up and stared around the big room. “It’s only for sorrow for havin’ had to disappoint Sir Percy, on account of dear Sir Robin.”

“Oh!” ejaculates the worthy Chockey in a tone of undisguised and sarcastic disbelief.

“Chockey!” exclaimed her mistress in the tone of a drill sergeant, now rising to her feet.

“Lawk! My Lady, I didn’t mean nothin’.”

“Chockey,” echoes Lady Peggy faintly, sinking to her knees, “whatever’ll I do? Oh Chock! Chock! and Sir Percy just the centre of my heart, and me to behave to him like a brute! Out of my sight, away with you! There’s the first bell a-ringin’ for dinner. Say to daddy I’m too deep in my hand-writin’ lessons to eat to-day! Say to him I’m gone out to break the new colt and not got back. Say to him I’m gone to the devil!”

And Lady Peggy fell a-weeping with such violence as Chockey had never seen; and, being a wise damsel, she left her mistress alone and went down to soothe the gouty Earl, tied to his chair, as best she could for the absence of his daughter Peg from dinner.