Musgrave.
Peggy flashed a look at him.
"I wish I could," she said; "but..."
"Of course," he returned promptly. "I understand that it's notpossible."
"Why can't you come?" urged John the second, tugging at her hand."Uncle John wants you, and so do I. Why can't you come?"
"Miss Annersley has her aunt's guests to entertain, John," Mr Musgraveexplained. "I am afraid we can't prefer our claim."
"She isn't Miss Annersley, she's Peggy," the boy corrected. "Aren'tyou?"
Peggy laughed.
"Sometimes I am," she admitted. "But that's a special privilege, John."
"What's that?" asked John junior.
Mr Musgrave, with a hand on his small nephew's shoulder, undertook toanswer this question.
"It is something you enjoy on account of your youth, and from which I amdebarred, though I should better appreciate it, on account of my age.Youth has advantages."
"I don't think," said Peggy, looking amused, "that he is the least bitwiser for your very able explanation."
"Perhaps," he suggested, "you can put it more plainly."
"A special privilege, John," she returned obligingly--and if she wereaddressing the child she looked directly at the man--"that sort ofspecial privilege, is a favour one extends to a person one likes, inreturn for a similar favour. I don't think that is much clearer," sheadded, and suddenly felt herself blushing beneath Mr Musgrave's steadygaze.
"The definition is perfectly obvious," he replied. "But I fancy we haveboth been talking over John's head."
Peggy stooped abruptly and kissed the child. When she straightenedherself she moved away with him and joined Mrs Sommers.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
John Musgrave Sommers was in disgrace. He had been guilty ofimpertinence to Eliza; worse, he had committed an assault by kicking hermaliciously with intent to do bodily harm. Eliza had complained to MrMusgrave, and had presented his nephew's conduct in the light of anenormity which she could not overlook until adequate measures had beentaken to correct this infantile depravity, and so insure against arepetition of the offence.
Mr Musgrave carried the complaint to his sister and supported her withhis presence, if with little else, in her attempt to bring thedelinquent to a proper state of repentance. John Musgrave Sommerspresented a defiant front and refused with all the obstinateinflexibility of his five years to acknowledge himself in the wrong.
"It was very wicked of you to kick Eliza," his mother insisted. "Whenyou are in a better frame of mind you will realise that. You must go toher and tell her you are sorry."
"I'm not sorry," John returned stoutly, with a watchful eye on hisuncle, whose displeasure was manifest and the quality of whose angerJohn, not being familiar with, was anxious to test before provoking itfurther with possible unpleasant results to himself.
This positive assertion of an unrepentant spirit nonplussed his elders.Belle looked helplessly at her brother for inspiration; but Mr Musgraveavoided her eye with a care which suggested a cowardly sympathy with theoffender if not with the offence. The punishment of children, while headmitted its necessity, was peculiarly distressing to him. Master JohnSommers, with a child's quick intuition, began to realise that he hadvery little to apprehend from his uncle, but his mother was a differentmatter; he had had contests with her before and he could not rememberever having come out of them triumphantly.
"John," she said gravely, and with a gentleness which John did not findreassuring, because his mother was always gentle even before and aftershe smacked him, "you are not going to be a naughty little boy andgrieve mother. You know it is very wrong to be rude to anyone, and itis dreadful to kick. I insist on your telling Eliza you are sorry. You_must_ be sorry."
"I'm not," John persisted.
Belle appealed to her brother direct.
"Uncle John, what is to be done with this very naughty little boy?"
Mr Musgrave flushed and looked almost as uncomfortable as though hewere being reprimanded for the kicking of Eliza instead of the chubby,unrepentant little sinner before him. He stared at the culprit andfrowned.
"Perhaps," he suggested hopefully, "if you let him run away and thinkabout it he will change his mind."
"No," said Belle firmly, having grasped the fact that she would get nohelp in this quarter; "he has got to change his mind now. If you won'tsay you are sorry, John, you will be punished--severely."
John began to look sulky, but he showed no indication of a proper senseof his own wickedness. He had kicked Eliza deliberately, and hadexperienced immense satisfaction in the knowledge that he had therebygot a bit of his own back. Eliza was always annoying him and lockinghim out from the kitchen. He liked the kitchen. Martha gave him cakeswhen he found his way there; but Eliza baulked him in his purposewhenever she could by closing the door in his face.
"But I'm not sorry," muttered John obstinately. "And you told me Imustn't tell stories."
It occurred to Mr Musgrave that the situation had come to a deadlock.He did not see how his sister would confute this argument. Clearly ifJohn was not sorry he ought not to be compelled to make a falseadmission. To frighten a child into telling a lie was mistakendiscipline.
Whether Mrs Sommers' diplomacy would have proved equal to coping withthe difficulty remained an undetermined point, for at this moment MrSommers entered the room, and his wife, manifestly relieved at hisopportune arrival, shifted the responsibility of parental authority tohis shoulders. Mr Sommers, while he appreciated the enormity of theoffence, admitted in his own mind--though he would not have allowed hisson to suspect it--extenuating circumstances. Had he been thirty yearsyounger he would probably have acted in a similar manner. Eliza wouldexasperate any small boy into committing an assault.
"Come here," said Charlie Sommers. He seated himself in a chair, anddrew his son towards him and held him firmly between his knees. "Whydid you kick Eliza?"
"Because she's a disagreeable cat," replied John.
"It is very rude to call people names," his father said with a severityhe was far from feeling, his opinion coinciding with his son's. "And itis very rude to your uncle to behave in this way in his house. I expecthe will not invite you again. Don't you know it is very wrong to kick?"
John deliberated this. He knew very well that it was wrong, but he hada strong disinclination towards admitting it. His father waited for ananswer.
"Yes," he acknowledged grudgingly.
"And aren't you sorry for doing wrong?"
"No," the culprit replied with less hesitation this time.
"Then I must make you sorry," said Mr Sommers resolutely. "Do you wantme to spank you, John?"
John began to whimper. Of the three adults present John Musgrave wasthe most unpleasantly affected by his namesake's tears; familiarity withJohn junior's little tricks had hardened his parents' sensibilities.
"Don't you think," said Mr Musgrave uneasily, "that you are--frightening the child?"
Charlie Sommers looked at his brother-in-law with amusement.
"He is less frightened than you are," he answered. "He is only bent ongetting his own way. Ring the bell, Uncle John, for Eliza. John isgoing to tell her he is sorry."
"I'm n-not sorry," blubbered John.
"You will be presently. If you won't tell Eliza you are sorry forkicking her I am going to spank you."
Mr Musgrave rang the bell and Eliza answered it in person, looking moresour than usual by reason of her outraged feelings. When her glancefell on Master John Sommers, sulky and unrepentant, but decidedly lessconfident, she sniffed indignantly and looked with cold disapproval onthe assembled group. Mr Musgrave walked away to the window and stoodwith his back to the room. For the first time since he had engaged herhe was not sure that he approved of Eliza, and he had never before feltso irritated with her habit of sniffing.
"I regret to hear that my little boy has been rude to you," Mr Sommerssaid. "I have troubled you to come here in order that he shalla
pologise. Now, John, tell Eliza that you are sorry for being naughty."
"I'm--"
John felt the sudden tightening of the hand upon his arm, and hesitated.Then he faced Eliza with all the malevolence which a small boy iscapable of expressing in his countenance, and muttered ungraciously:
"I'm sorry, because I've got to be."
"Try again," said Mr Sommers relentlessly; and Eliza sniffed louder,her light eyes on the child's angry face.
John capitulated before overwhelming odds.
"I'm sorry," he said more politely, and looked at his foot in preferenceto Eliza's hard face, the foot which had committed, the assault.
"I've never been accustomed to be treated like that by children," saidEliza acidly. "Boys are troublesome, I know, but they oughtn't to berude. I'm not used to it. I wouldn't take a place where there werechildren, especially boys--"
"That will do, Eliza," observed Mr Musgrave, turning round. "You maygo."
At the curt finality of his tone Eliza withered. For a moment sheappeared to be about to break, forth again, but, changing her mind,sniffed herself out of the room and closed the door viciously. CharlieSommers, still holding his son between his knees, gazed sternly into thesmall rebellious face.
"You cut away upstairs, John," he said. "And if ever you kick anyoneagain I'll whip you."
He got up when his son, obeying his instructions with extraordinaryalacrity, had made his exit, and faced his brother-in-law with a laugh.
"John," he said, "I am of the opinion that the punishment was in excessof the fault. How can you endure that sour-faced she-devil in thehouse? The look of her is enough to put a man off his meals."
"She is perhaps a little unsympathetic," John Musgrave allowed,recalling the look in Eliza's eyes while they had rested on the boy."But she serves my purpose. In a bachelor establishment a middle-agedwoman is more satisfactory than a--a younger person."
"The single state has its disadvantages," Charlie Sommers said. "If toemploy an Eliza is the penalty for bachelorhood I'd sooner be a Mormon."
"I really think," remarked Belle, who during this discussion had beenpursuing a train of thought of her own, "that John ought not to beallowed to go to the kinema party this afternoon. He deserves somepunishment. A disappointment like that would leave a more lastingimpression."
"Isn't that," asked her brother quickly, "being unnecessarily severe?He is a very small sinner, remember."
"You old dear?" she said, smiling. "You spoil that child. One has tobe severe with John; he forgets his sins so readily."
"So did you when you were his age," he answered. "As far as my memoryserves, you were indulged more than John is; and I don't think it had adeteriorating effect on your character."
"That settles it," Charlie Sommers put in. "John goes to the Hall."
So John went to the Hall, and in a burst of confidence after theperformance confessed to Peggy his wickedness of the morning, for whichhe expressed still an unrepentant spirit. Peggy carried him forpunishment to the mistletoe and kissed him, struggling and resisting,beneath the bough, to Mr Musgrave's open amusement. He wriggled awayfrom her, and pointing a chubby finger at his uncle commanded her topunish Uncle John too.
"But Uncle John doesn't merit punishment," she said, with a bright blushand laughter in her eyes.
"That form of punishment is another special privilege, John," MrMusgrave remarked, with his gaze on Peggy's rosy face.
"It is a special privilege which is any man's due," broke in CharlieSommers, coming up and catching Peggy round the waist and kissing hersoundly, "when a girl stands deliberately under the mistletoe."
Mr Musgrave, who had witnessed this attack with amazement, turned awaywith a sense of annoyance at his brother-in-law's bucolic humour. Tokiss a woman beneath the mistletoe appeared to him as vulgar as kissingher without that flimsy excuse. He was surprised that Peggy did notshow greater resentment at this treatment.
Charlie Sommers and Peggy looked at Mr Musgrave's retreating back, andthen at one another, and smiled.
"You have disgusted Mr Musgrave," she said.
"I rather suspect him of jealousy," he replied. "He hadn't spunk enoughor he'd have done the same himself."
She flushed quickly.
"John would never be guilty of impertinence," she returned.
"His sins are those of omission," he retorted. "I think John's an ass."
"I think he is an eminently discreet and comfortable person," shereplied. "I should never feel afraid of mistletoe in his presence."
"It appears to me," he observed, eyeing the mistletoe above her head,"that you do not show particular trepidation in regard to the plant inanyone's presence."
Peggy received this remark in scornful silence. It is not always thecase that a woman enjoys the last word.
But later in the afternoon, when John Musgrave was departing and she waswishing him good-bye, standing beneath the identical branch of mistletoein the big dim hall, she saw his eyes travel to the bough and then toher lips, and she stood looking at him, smiling and ironical. JohnMusgrave might be an eminently discreet and comfortable person, but hewas not without certain human weaknesses.
"The druids regarded it as a sacred plant," he remarked, feelingconstrained to say something on observing her gaze follow his.
"Did they? They were rather musty old people, weren't they?"
"I think," he returned, "that perhaps I am a little musty too."
He took her hand and raised it and kissed it--under the mistletoe.There was in his action in doing this something so courtly andrespectful, something so much more impressive in its significance thanin Charlie Sommers' careless embrace, that Peggy found, herself blushingwarmly, felt her cheeks glow and her eyes grow bright as Mr Musgravevery gently released her hand and stood again erect, tall and unsmiling,while he bade her farewell. She felt like one of the gentlewomen ofbygone times who smiled down at her from faded frames on the walls andwho would have curtsied sedately in response to this respectfulsalutation. Peggy had an idea that she ought to curtsey: instead shesaid gaily:
"I'm so glad you came. It has been a ripping afternoon, hasn't, it?"
Later, in the solitude of her own room, seated in a low chair before thefire, resting between the kinema entertainment of the afternoon, whichhad been for the young people of the village, and a similarentertainment to be held the same evening for the older inhabitants, heridle hands lying listlessly over the arms of her chair, a mischievoussmile playing about her lips, she pictured the scene again, and MrMusgrave's face, and laughed softly. A pleasing light of satisfactionshone in her eyes, the satisfaction which a woman knows when sherealises the sense of her own power.
"I believe," she said, half aloud, which, since there was no one presentto overhear her, was immaterial, "that John is falling in love with me."
The dimple at the corner of her mouth deepened and the laughter in hereyes increased. Peggy was conscious of a feeling of triumph. She likedpeople to fall in love with her. She experienced a distinctdisinclination, however, to fall in love herself. She was a very longway, she believed, from falling in love with fossilised John Musgrave.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
With the New Year--or, rather, in advance of it--Peggy's youngest sisterarrived at the Hall. Mrs Chadwick had invited the entire family; butthe Midland doctor could not leave her practice, and the children of themarried niece had inconveniently developed whooping-cough; so Sophy, thearchitect, had divided her holiday, spending Christmas with her marriedsister and coming on to the Hall for the finish of the festivities,which included a dance to be held on New Year's Eve and a round ofsomewhat dull dinners and similar entertainments wherewith theChadwicks' guests sought to make a return of hospitality.
Sophy hated dinner-parties, but she looked forward with considerableenthusiasm to the coming dance. Mrs Chadwick had provided both nieceswith dresses for the occasion, and, in order that these independentyoung women should not feel unduly indebted, s
he called these herChristmas gifts.
"Aunt Ruby is a brick," remarked Sophy, as she surveyed herselfcomplacently in the mirror in her sister's room and wondered what usethe gauzy creation would serve when she got back to her plans and herdesk. "I look really _chic_, don't I?"
"You look sweet," Peggy said with warm sincerity; and her sister caughther round the waist and drew her to the glass and stood holding her andsurveying their double reflections with critical, unenvious eyes.
"I look just a plain young gawk beside you," she said. "You _are_pretty, Peggy. You grow prettier every year. Is the masculine breastof Moresby susceptible?--or is Moresby wholly feminine? A bachelor--aneligible bachelor--would be an anomaly in a place like this."
"There is John," said Peggy, smiling.
Her sister's brows lifted ironically.
"John! Has it come to that already? Who is John?"
"We passed him on the road from Rushleigh," Peggy explained. "Thecomfortable-looking person in the motor with the fur on his coat."
Sophy