The next morning, immediately after breakfast, Peggy went up to her own room to pack for her visit to the Larches. The long dress-box, which had been stored away ever since its arrival, was brought out, and its contents displayed to an admiring audience, consisting of Mrs Asplin, Esther, Mellicent, and Mary the housemaid.
Everything was there that the heart of girl could desire, and a mother’s forethought provide for her darling’s use when she was far-away. A dress of cobweb Indian muslin embroidered in silk, a fan of curling feathers, a dear little satin pocket in which to keep the lace handkerchief, rolls of ribbons, dainty white shoes, with straggly silk stockings rolled into the toes.
Peggy displayed one article after another, while Mellicent groaned and gurgled with delight; Mary exclaimed, “My, Miss Peggy, but you will be smart!” and Mrs Asplin stifled a sigh at the thought of her own inferior preparations.
Punctually at ten o’clock the carriage drove up to the door, and off Peggy drove, not altogether unwillingly, now that it had come to the pinch, for after all it is pleasant to be appreciated, and, when a great excitement is taking place in the neighbourhood, it is only human to wish to be in the thick of the fray.
Lady Darcy welcomed her guest with gracious kindness, and, as soon as she had taken off her hat and jacket in the dressing-room which was allotted to her use, she was taken straight away to the chief room, where the work of decoration was being carried briskly forward. The village joiner was fitting mirrors into the corners and hammering with deafening persistence, a couple of gardeners were arranging banks of flowers and palms, and Rosalind stood in the midst of a bower of greenery, covered from head to foot in a smock of blue linen, and with a pair of gardening gloves drawn over her hands.
She gave a little cry of relief and satisfaction as Peggy entered.
“Oh, Mawiquita, so glad you have come! Mother is so busy that she can’t be with me at all, and these wretched bwanches pwick my fingers! Do look wound, and say how it looks! This is weally the servants’ hall, you know, as we have not a pwoper ballroom, and it is so square and high that it is perfectly dweadful to decowate! A long, narrow woom is so much better!”
Peggy thought the arrangements tasteful and pretty; but she could not gush over the effect, which, in truth, was in no way original or striking. There seemed little to be done in the room itself, so she suggested an adjournment into the outer hall, which seemed to offer unique opportunities.
“That space underneath the staircase!” she cried eagerly. “Oh, Rosalind, we could make it look perfectly sweet with all the beautiful Eastern things that you have brought home from your travels! Let us make a little harem, with cushions to sit on, and hanging lamps, and Oriental curtains for drapery. We could do it while the men are finishing this room, and be ready to come back to it after lunch.”
“Oh, what a sweet idea! Mawiquita, you are quite too clever!” cried Rosalind, aglow with pleasure. “Let us begin at once. It will be ever so much more intewesting than hanging about here.”
She thrust her hand through Peggy’s arm as she spoke, and the two girls went off on a tour through the house to select the most suitable articles for their decoration of the “harem.” There was no lack of choice, for the long suite of reception-rooms was full of treasures, and Peggy stopped every few minutes to point with a small forefinger and say, “That screen, please! That table! That stool!” to the servants who had been summoned in attendance. The smaller things, such as ornaments, table-cloths, and lamps she carried herself, while Rosalind murmured sweetly, “Oh, don’t twouble! You mustn’t, weally! Let me help you!” and stood with her arms hanging by her side, without showing the faintest sign of giving the offered help.
As the morning passed away, Peggy found indeed that the Honourable Miss Darcy was a broken reed to lean upon in the way of assistance. She sat on a stool and looked on while the other workers hammered and pinned and stitched—so that Peggy’s prophecy as to her own subordinate position was exactly reversed, and the work of supervision was given entirely into her hands.
It took nearly two hours to complete the decorations of the “harem,” but when all was finished the big ugly space beneath the staircase was transformed into as charming a nook as it is possible to imagine. Pieces of brilliant flag embroidery from Cairo draped the farther wall, a screen of carved work shut out the end of the passage, gauzy curtains of gold and blue depended in festoons from the ascending staircase, and stopped just in time to leave a safe place for a hanging lamp of wrought iron and richly coloured glass. On the floor were spread valuable rugs and piles of bright silken cushions, while on an inlaid table stood a real Turkish hookah and a brass tray with the little egg-shaped cups out of which travellers in the East are accustomed to sip the strong black coffee of the natives.
Peggy lifted the ends of her apron in her hands and executed a dance of triumph on her own account when all was finished, and Rosalind said, “Weally, we have been clever! I think we may be proud of ourselves!” in amiable effusion.
The two girls went off to luncheon in a state of halcyon amiability which was new indeed in the history of their acquaintance, and Lady Darcy listened with an amused smile to their rhapsodies on the subject of the morning’s work, promising faithfully not to look at anything until the right moment should arrive, and she should be summoned to gaze and admire.
By the time that the workers were ready to return to the room, the men had finished the arrangements at which they had been at work before lunch, and were beginning to tack festoons of evergreens along the walls, the dull paper of which had been covered with fluting of soft pink muslin. The effect was heavy and clumsy in the extreme, and Rosalind stamped her foot with an outburst of fretful anger.
“Stop putting up those wreaths! Stop at once! They are simply hideous! It weminds me of a penny weading in the village schoolwoom! You might as well put up ‘God save the Queen’ and ‘A Mewwy Chwistmas’ at once! Take them down this minute, Jackson! I won’t have them!”
The man touched his forehead, and began pulling out the nails in half-hearted fashion.
“Very well, miss, as you wish. Seems a pity, though, not to use ’em, for it took me all yesterday to put ’em together. It’s a sin to throw ’em away.”
“I won’t have them in the house, if they took you a week!” Rosalind replied sharply, and she turned on her heel and looked appealingly in Peggy’s face. “It’s a howwid failure! The woom looks so stiff and stwaight—like a pink box with nothing in it! Mother won’t like it a bit. What can we do to make it better?”
Peggy scowled, pursed up her lips, pressed her hand to her forehead, and strode up and down the room, rolling her eyes from side to side, and going through all the grimaces of one in search of inspiration. Rosalind was right: unless some device were found by which the shape of the room could be disguised, the decorations must be pronounced more or less a failure. She craned her head to the ceiling, and suddenly beamed in triumph.
“I have it! The very thing! We will fasten the garlands to that middle beam, and loop up the ends at intervals all round the walls. That will break the squareness, and make the room look like a tent, with a ceiling of flowers.”
“Ah–h!” cried Rosalind; and clasped her hands with a gesture of relief. “Of course! The vewy thing! We ought to have thought of it at the beginning. Get the ladder at once, Jackson, and put in a hook or wing, or something to hold the ends; and be sure that it is strong enough. What a good thing that the weaths are weady! You see, your work will not be wasted after all.”
She was quite gracious in her satisfaction, and for the next two hours she and Peggy were busily occupied superintending the hanging of the evergreen wreaths and in arranging bunches of flowers to be placed at each point where the wreaths were fastened to the wall. At the end of this time, Rosalind was summoned to welcome the distinguished visitors who had arrived by the afternoon train. She invited Peggy to accompany her to the drawing-room, but in a hesitating fashion, and with a glance round the disordered room, which said, as plainly as words could do, that she would be disappointed if the invitation were accepted; and Peggy, transformed in a moment into a poker of pride and dignity, declared that she would prefer to remain where she was until all was finished.
“Well, it weally would be better, wouldn’t it? I will have a tway sent in to you here, and do, Mawiquita, see that evewything is swept up and made tidy at once, for I shall bring them in to look wound diwectly after tea, and we must have the wooms tidy!”
Rosalind tripped away, and Peggy was left to herself for a lonely and troublesome hour. The tea-tray was brought in, and she was just seating herself before an impromptu table, when up came a gardener to say that one of “these ’ere wreaths seemed to hang uncommon near the gas-bracket. It didn’t seem safe like.” And off she went in a panic of consternation to see what could be done. There was nothing for it but to move the wreath some inches farther away, which involved moving the next also, and the next, and the next, so as to equalise the distances as much as possible; and by the time that they were settled to Peggy’s satisfaction, lo, table and tray had been whisked out of sight by some busy pair of hands, and only a bare space met her eyes. This was blow number one, for, after working hard all afternoon, tea and cake come as a refreshment which one would not readily miss. She cheered herself, however, by putting dainty finishing touches here and there, seeing that the lamp was lighted in the “harem” outside, and was busy placing fairy lamps among the shrubs which were to screen the band, when a babel of voices from outside warned her that the visitors were approaching. Footsteps came nearer and nearer, and a chorus of exclamations greeted the sight of the “harem.” The door stood open, Peggy waited for Rosalind’s voice to call and bid her share the honours, but no summons came. She heard Lady Darcy’s exclamation, and the quick, strong tones of the strange countess.
“Charming, charming; quite a stroke of genius! I never saw a more artistic little nook. What made you think of it, my dear?”
“Ha!” said Peggy to herself, and took a step forward, only to draw back in dismay, as a light laugh reached her ear, followed by Rosalind’s careless—
“Oh, I don’t know; I wanted to make it pwetty, don’t you know; it was so dweadfully bare, and there seemed no other way.”
Then there was a rustle of silk skirts, and the two ladies entered the room, followed by their respective daughters, Rosalind beautiful and radiant, and the Ladies Berkhampton with their chins poked forward, and their elbows thrust out in ungainly fashion. They paused on the threshold, and every eye travelled up to the wreath-decked ceiling. A flush of pleasure came into Lady Darcy’s pale cheeks, and she listened to the countess’s compliments with sparkling eyes.
“It is all the work of this clever child,” she said, laying her hand fondly on Rosalind’s shoulder. “I have had practically nothing to do with the decorations. This is the first time I have been in the room to-day, and I had no idea that the garlands were to be used in this way. I thought they were for the walls.”
“I congratulate you, Rosalind! You are certainly very happy in your arrangements,” said the countess cordially. Then she put up her eyeglass and stared inquiringly at Peggy, who stood by with her hair fastened back in its usual pigtail, and a big white apron pinned over her dress.
“She thinks I am the kitchen-maid!” said Peggy savagely to herself; but there was little fear of such a mistake, and, the moment that Lady Darcy noticed the girl’s presence, she introduced her kindly enough, if with somewhat of a condescending air.
“This is a little friend of Rosalind’s who has come up to help. She is fond of this sort of work,” she said; then, before any of the strangers had time to acknowledge the introduction, she added hastily, “And now I am sure you must all be tired after your journey, and will be glad to go to your rooms and rest. It is quite wicked of me to keep you standing. Let me take you upstairs at once!”
They sailed away with the same rustle of garments, the same babel of high-toned voices, and Peggy stood alone in the middle of the deserted room. No one had asked her to rest, or suggested that she might be tired; she had been overlooked and forgotten in the presence of the distinguished visitor. She was only a little girl who was “fond” of this sort of work, and, it might be supposed, was only too thankful to be allowed to help! The house sank into silence. She waited for half an hour longer, in the hope that someone would remember her presence, and then, tired, hungry, and burning with repressed anger, crept upstairs to her own little room and fell asleep upon the couch.