The schoolroom was a long, bare apartment running along one side of the house, and boasting three tall windows, through which the sun poured in on a shabby carpet and ink-stained tables. Everything looked well worn and, to a certain extent, dilapidated, yet there was an air of cheerful comfort about the whole which is not often found in rooms of the kind. Mrs Asplin revelled in beautiful colours, and would tolerate no drab and saffron papers in her house; so the walls were covered with a rich soft blue; the cushions on the wicker chairs rang the changes from rose to yellow; a brilliant Japanese screen stood in one corner, and a wire stand before the open grate held a number of flowering plants. A young fellow of seventeen or eighteen was seated at one end of the table employed in arranging a selection of foreign stamps. This was Maxwell, the vicar’s eldest surviving son, who was to go up to Oxford at the beginning of the year, and was at present reading under his father’s supervision. His sister Mellicent was perched on the table itself, watching his movements, and vouchsafing scraps of advice. Her suggestions were received with sniffs of scornful superiority, but Mellicent prattled on unperturbed, being a plump, placid person, with flaxen hair, blue eyes, and somewhat obtuse sensibilities. The elder girl was sitting reading by the window, leaning her head on her hand, and showing a long, thin face, comically like her father’s, with the same deep lines running down her cheeks. She was neither so pretty nor so even-tempered as her sister, but she had twice the character, and was a young person who made her individuality felt in the house; while Maxwell was the beauty of the family, with his mother’s crisp, dark locks, grey eyes, and brunette colouring.
These three young people were the vicar’s only surviving children; but there were two more occupants of the room—the two lads who were being coached to enter the University at the same time as his own son. Number one was a fair, dandified-looking youth, who sat astride a deck-chair, with his trousers hitched up so as to display long, narrow feet, shod in scarlet silk socks and patent-leather slippers. He had fair hair, curling over his forehead; bold blue eyes, an aquiline nose, and an air of being very well satisfied with the world in general and himself in particular. This was Oswald Elliston, the son of a country squire, who had heard of the successes of Mr Asplin’s pupils, and was storing up disappointment for himself in expecting similar exploits from his own handsome, but by no means over-brilliant, son. The second pupil had a small microscope in his hand, and was poring over a collection of “specimens,” with his shoulders hitched up to his ears, in a position the reverse of elegant. Every now and then he would bend his head to write down a few notes on the paper beside him, showing a square-chinned face, with heavy eyebrows and strong roughly-marked features. His clothes were worn, his cuffs invisible, and his hair ruffled into wild confusion by the unconscious rubbings of his hands; and this was the Honourable Robert Darcy, third son of Lord Darcy, a member of the Cabinet, and a politician of world-wide reputation.
The servants at the vicarage were fond of remarking, apropos of the Honourable Robert, that he “didn’t look it”; which remark would have been a subject of sincere gratification to the lad himself, had it been overheard; for there was no surer way of annoying him than by referring to his position, or giving him the prefix to which he was entitled.
The young folks looked up inquiringly as Mr and Mrs Asplin entered the room, for the hour after tea was set apart for recreation, and the elders were usually only too glad to remain in their own quiet little sanctum. Oswald, the gallant, sprang to his feet and brought forward a chair for Mrs Asplin, but she waved him aside, and broke impetuously into words.
“Children! we have news for you. You are going to have a new companion. Father has had a letter this afternoon about another pupil—”
Mellicent yawned, and Esther looked calmly uninterested, but the three lads were full of interest. Their faces turned towards the vicar with expressions of eager curiosity.
“A new fellow! This term! From what school, sir?”
“A ladies’ boarding-school at Brighton!” Mrs Asplin spoke rapidly, so as to be beforehand with her husband, and her eyes danced with mischievous enjoyment, as she saw the dismay depicted on the three watching faces. A ladies’ school! Maxwell, Oswald, and Robert, had a vision of a pampered pet in curls, and round jacket, and their backs stiffened in horrified indignation at the idea that grown men of seventeen and eighteen should be expected to associate with a “kid” from a ladies’ school!
The vicar could not restrain a smile, but he hastened to correct the mistake. “It’s not a ‘fellow’ at all, this time. It’s a girl! We have had a letter from Arthur Saville’s mother, asking us to look after her daughter while she is in India. She will come to us very soon, and stay, I suppose, for three or four years, sharing your lessons, my dears, and studying with you—”
“A girl! Good gracious! Where will she sleep?” cried Mellicent, with characteristic matter-of-fact curiosity, while Esther chimed in with further inquiries.
“What is her name? How old is she? What is she like? When will she come? Why is she leaving school?”
“Not very happy. Peggy. In the little box-room over the study. About fifteen, I believe. Haven’t the least idea. In a few weeks from now,” said Mrs Asplin, answering all the questions at once in her impulsive fashion, the while she walked round the table, stroked Maxwell’s curls, bent an interested glance at Robert’s collection, and laid a hand on Esther’s back, to straighten bowed shoulders. “She is Arthur’s sister, so she is sure to be nice, and both her parents will be in India, so you must all be kind to the poor little soul, and give her a hearty welcome.”
Silence! Nobody had a word to say in response to this remark; but the eyes of the young people met furtively across the table, and Mr Asplin felt that they were only waiting until their seniors should withdraw before bursting into eager conversation.
“Better leave them to have it out by themselves,” he whispered significantly to his wife; then added aloud, “Well, we won’t interrupt you any longer. Don’t turn the play-hour into work, Rob! You will study all the better for a little relaxation. You have proved the truth of that axiom, Oswald—eh?” and he went laughing out of the room, while Oswald held the door open for his wife, smiling assent in lazy fashion.
“Another girl!” he exclaimed, as he reseated himself on his chair, and looked with satisfaction at his well-shod feet. “This is an unexpected blow! A sister of the redoubtable Saville! From all I have heard of him, I should imagine a female edition would be rather a terror in a quiet household. I never saw Saville,—what sort of a fellow was he to look at, don’t you know?”
Mellicent reflected.
“He had a nose!” she said solemnly. Then, as the others burst into hilarious laughter, “Oh, it’s no use shrieking at me; I mean what I say,” she insisted. “A big nose—like Wellington’s! When people are very clever, they always have big noses. I imagine Peggy small, with a little thin face, because she was born in India, and lived there until she was six years old, and a great big nose in the middle—”
“Sounds appetising,” said Maxwell shortly. “I don’t! I imagine Peggy like her mother, with blue eyes and brown hair. Mrs Saville is awfully pretty. I have seen her often, and if her daughter is like her—”
“I don’t care in the least how she looks,” said Esther severely. “It’s her character that matters. Indian children are generally spoiled, and if she has been to a boarding-school she may give herself airs. Then we shall quarrel. I am not going to be patronised by a girl of fourteen. I expect she will be Mellicent’s friend, not mine.”
“I wonder what sums she is in!” said Mellicent dreamily. “Rob! what do you think about it? Are you glad or sorry? You haven’t said anything yet.”
Robert raised his eyes from his microscope, and looked her up and down, very much as a big Newfoundland dog looks at the terrier which disturbs its slumber.
“It’s nothing to me,” he said loftily. “She may come if she likes.” Then, with sudden recollection, “Does she learn the violin? Because we have already one girl in this house who is learning the violin, and life won’t be worth living if there is a second.”
He tucked his big notebook under his chin as he spoke, and began sawing across it with a pencil, wagging his head and rolling his eyes, in imitation of Mellicent’s own manner of practising, producing at the same time such long-drawn, catlike wails from between his closed lips as made the listeners shriek with laughter. Mellicent, however, felt bound to expostulate.
“It’s not the tune at all,” she cried loudly. “Not like any of my pieces; and if I do roll my eyes, I don’t rumple up my hair and pull faces at the ceiling, as some people do, and I know who they are, but I am too polite to say so! I hope Peggy will be my friend, because then there will be two of us, and you won’t dare to tease me any more. When Arthur was here, a boy pulled my hair, and he carried him upstairs and held his head underneath the shower-bath.”
“I’ll pull it again, and see if Peggy will do the same,” said Rob pleasantly; and poor Mellicent stared from one smiling face to another, conscious that she was being laughed at, but unable to see the point of the joke.
“When Peggy comes,” she said, in an injured tone, “I hope she will be sympathetic. I’m the youngest, and I think you ought all to do what I want; instead of which you make fun, and laugh among yourselves, and send me messages. For instance, when Max wanted his stamps brought down—”
Maxwell passed his big hand over her hair and face, then, reversing the direction, rubbed up the point of the little snub nose.
“Never mind, chubby, your day is over! We will make Peggy the message-boy now. Peggy will be a nice, meek little girl, who will like to run messages for her betters! She shall be my fag, and attend to me. I’ll give her my stamps to sort.”
“I rather thought of having her for fag myself; we can’t admit a girl to our study unless she makes herself useful,” said Oswald languidly; whereupon Rob banged the notebook on the table with clanging decision.
“Peggy belongs to me,” he announced firmly. “It’s no use you two fellows quarrelling. That matter is settled once for all. Peggy will be my fag; I’ve barleyed her for myself, and you have nothing to say in the matter.”
But Esther tossed her head with an air of superior wisdom.
“Wait till she comes,” she said sagely. “If Peggy is anything like her brother, you may spare yourself the trouble of planning as to what she must or must not do. It is waste of time. Peggy will be mistress over us all!”