Fernley House Part 2

"Is it any one I know, Polly?" asked Margaret.

"I don't know, Miss Marget; I niver see him. A lame gentleman with a crutch; he looks just lovely!" added Polly, with effusion.

"Miss Margaret didn't ask you how he looked, Polly!" said Elizabeth, severely. "You let your tongue run away with you."

"Tell him I will be down directly, Polly," said Margaret.

"Now, Miss Margaret, do you think you'd better?" asked Elizabeth. "If it's not a tramp--"

"Indeed, and he's no tramp!" broke in Polly, indignantly. "He's a gentleman, if ever I see one, Miss Margaret; and him in lovely white clothes and all, just like young Mr. Pennyfeather as was here last year."

"Polly, will you learn to speak when you are spoken to, and not interrupt your elders?" demanded Elizabeth. "If he's not a tramp, I was saying, Miss Margaret, he's likely an agent of some kind, and why should you be annoyed, with all the linen to go over? He can call again, most likely."

Elizabeth spoke with some feeling under her grave and restrained words.

The examination of the house-linen was to her mind the most important event of the week, and already they had been disturbed once by a sudden incursion of the dogs, bringing a dead squirrel.

"No, Elizabeth," said Margaret, "I must go down. Tell the gentleman I will be down directly, Polly; show him into the library, please. Dear Elizabeth, you can finish the table-cloths just as well without me. You always did it before I came."

"Not at all, Miss," said Elizabeth, with patient resignation; "you'll find me in the sewing-room, Miss, whenever you are ready for me. It's best that you should go over the things yourself, and then you will be satisfied, and no mistakes made."

Margaret nodded, with a little inward sigh over the rigidity of Elizabeth's ideal of a perfect housekeeper; patted her hair hurriedly to make sure that it was neat, confirmed the pat by a glance in the mirror, and went quickly down-stairs.

A tall, slender figure rose, leaning on a stick, as she entered the library. "What a sad face!" was Margaret's first thought; but, when the stranger smiled, it changed to "What a beautiful one!"

"Cousin Margaret?" said the young man, inquiringly.

"Yes--I am Margaret," said the girl. "But who--oh! are you--can it be Peggy's Hugh? It is, I see. Oh, how do you do, Cousin? I am so very, very glad to see you."

They shook hands cordially, scanning each other with earnest and friendly eyes.

"I should have known you, of course, from your picture, if not from Peggy's ardent descriptions," said Hugh Montfort.

"And I ought to have known you, surely," cried Margaret; "only, not knowing you were in this part of the country, you see--"

"Uncle John did not get my letter? It ought to have reached him some days ago. I was coming on to Cambridge, and wrote as soon as I started.

No wonder you were surprised, being hailed as cousin by an unheralded vagabond with a stick."

"Oh, why do you stand?" cried Margaret. "Sit down, Cousin Hugh; to think of its being really you; I have wanted to see and know you ever since--oh, for ever so long. Hark! there comes Uncle John now. How delighted he will be!"

"Margaret, my dear!" called Mr. Montfort from the hall. "I have just had a letter--most surprising thing--from--hallo! what's all this? Hugh, my dear fellow, I'm delighted to see you. Got here before your letter, eh?

How did that happen? Never mind, so long as you are here now. Well, well, well! sit down here, and let me look at you. This is a pleasure indeed. Your father's eyes; I should know them in a Chinaman; not that you look like a Chinaman. How are they all at home? How's your father?

When did you leave home? Have you had anything to eat? What would you like? Margaret, my dear, get Hugh something to eat, he's probably starved."

Hugh laughingly disclaimed starvation, and begged to wait till their tea-time. "I am not hungry, truly I am not," he said. "There is so much to say, too, isn't there, Uncle John? Father is very well and hearty. I have a pipe for you in my bag. I brought a bag with me; do you suppose you could put me up for a few days, Uncle?"

Rea.s.sured by Mr. Montfort's earnest a.s.surance that he should keep him all summer, Hugh leaned back in his chair, and looked about him with eager eyes.

"This is the library!" he said. "Uncle John, ever since I learned to read, one of my dreams has been to see this room. Father has always told us about it, and where his favorite books were, and where you all used to sit when you came here to read."

He rose and, crossing the room, took a book from a shelf without a moment's hesitation. "Here is the 'Morte d'Arthur,'" he said; "you see I knew where to find it. And Father used to sit on top of that stepladder."

"So he did!" cried Mr. Montfort, delighted. "I can see him now, with one leg curled under him, eating apples and shouting about Lancelot and Tristram."

"And you sat in the great copper coal-hod--ah! there it is!--and read Froissart, the great folio with the colored prints. I see it, just in the place father described."

"Uncle John," said Margaret, reproachfully, "you never told me that you sat in the coal-scuttle. I know papa's perch, the mantel-piece, because he could get at the little Shakespeares from there."

Mr. Montfort laughed.

"Leave me some remnant of dignity, Meg," he said. "How can you expect me to confess that I sat in the coal-scuttle? Have you no reverence for gray hairs?"

"Oh, a very great deal, dear Uncle; but there were no gray hairs in the coal-scuttle days; and my only regret about you is the not having known you when you were a boy."

"Horrid monkey, I have been given to understand," said her uncle, lightly. "Go on, Hugh; tell us some more of the things that Jim--your father--remembers. Old Jim! it's a great shame that he never comes to look up the old place himself."

"It is indeed, sir!" said Hugh. "I've always thought so, and now that I see the place--oh, I shall send him, that's all, as soon as ever I get home. There are the Indian clubs; oh, the carved one--is it true that that was given to Grandfather Montfort by a Fiji chief, or was the Pater fooling us? He sometimes makes up things, he acknowledges, just for the fun of it."

"True enough, I believe!" said Mr. Montfort, taking down the great club, covered from end to end with strange and delicate carving.

"Did he ever tell you how near he came to breaking my head with this club? He may have forgotten; I have not. We used to keep it in our room, the great nursery up-stairs, Margaret; you must show that to Hugh by and by. I woke up one night, and was afraid the crow that I was taming in the back garden might be hungry. I got out of the window and shinned down the spout. The crow was all right; but when I came back, Jim woke up, and took me for a burglar, and went for me with the club, thinking it the chance of his life. I was only half-way through the bars when he caught me a crack--I can hear my skull rattle with it now."

"Oh, Uncle John! and you held on?"

"My dear, I held on; it would have been rather unfortunate for me to let go at the moment. I sung out, of course; and when I got through I fell upon my friend James, and Roger had to wake up and come and drag us from under the bed before he could separate us. Sweet boys! do you and your brothers indulge in these little endearments, Hugh? Jim was a glorious fighter."

Hugh laughed. "Jim and George used to have pretty lively sc.r.a.ps sometimes," he said. "It wasn't so much in my line, but I took it out in airs, I fancy. The poor fellows couldn't punch my head, and it must have been hard lines for them sometimes. As for Max and Peter, they are twins, you know. I doubt if either of them knows exactly which is himself and which is the other, so they don't have real sc.r.a.ps, just puppy-play, rolling over and over and pounding each other."

"Oh, what good times they would have with Basil and Susan D.!" cried Margaret. "What a pity they cannot know one another, all these dear boys!"

"So it is! so it is!" said Mr. Montfort, heartily. "We must bring it about, one of these days; we must surely bring it about. Fond of dogs, Hugh? I've got a pair of nice puppies here; like to go and see them before tea, or shall Margaret show you your room?"

Hugh elected in favor of the puppies, and uncle and nephew walked off together, well content. Margaret looked after them, thinking what a n.o.ble pair they made. Hugh walked lame, to be sure, yet not ungracefully, she thought; and though slender, still his shoulders were square and manly.

Then her thoughts turned to matters of practical hospitality, and she sped to the kitchen, to tell the good news to Frances.

"Oh, Frances, Mr. Hugh has come, my Uncle Jim's son; Miss Peggy's brother, Frances! He has come all the way from Ohio, and I want you to give him the very best supper that ever was, please!"

Now Frances had that moment discovered that her best porcelain saucepan was cracked; she therefore answered with some asperity. "Indeed, then, Miss Margaret, what is good enough for Mr. Montfort must be good enough for his nephew or any other young gentleman. My supper is all planned, and I can't be fashed with new things at this time of day."

"Now, Frances, don't be cross, that's a dear! I want you to see Mr.

Hugh. Look, there he is this minute, crossing the green with Uncle John."

Frances looked; looked again, long and earnestly; then straightway she fell into a great bustle. "Dear me, Miss Margaret, run away now, that's a good young lady. How can I be doing, and you all about the kitchen like a ball of string? He's lame, the beautiful young gentleman; you never told me he was lame. I did think as how we might be doing with the cold fowl, and French fried potatoes and m.u.f.fins, but that's nothing to show the heart. Run away now, Miss, and if you was going up-stairs, be so good as send me Polly. She's idling her time away, I'll be bound, and not a soul to help me with my salad and croquettes. Dear! dear! I be pestered out of my life, mostly."

"Don't kill us, Frances!" cried Margaret, as she ran away, laughing. "I really think the cold fowl will be quite enough."

Frances deigned no reply; and Margaret hastened up-stairs, to tell the good news to Elizabeth. Elizabeth was in the sewing-room, waiting, with plaintive dignity, till Margaret should please to go over the rest of the table-cloths; but at the tidings of the advent of a dear and honored guest, she dropped thimble and scissors, and rose hastily, declaring that the Blue Room must be cleaned instantly, and put in order for Mr.

Montfort's nephew.