Five Little Peppers at School Part 52

She laughed softly to herself all the way downstairs, with an insolent little fling to her head, that boded ill for her mistress's interests.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Chatterton was angrily pacing up and down the room.

"What arrant nonsense a man can be capable of when he is headstrong to begin with! To think of the elegant Horatio King, a model for all men, surrounding himself with this commonplace family. Faugh! It is easy enough to see what they are all after. But I shall prevent it.

Meanwhile, the only way to do it is to break the spirit of this Polly Pepper. Once do that, and I have the task easy to my hand."

She listened intently. "It can't be possible she would refuse to come.

Ha! I thought so."

Polly came quietly in. No one to see her face would have supposed that she had thrown aside the book she had been waiting weeks to read, so that lessons and music need not suffer. For she was really glad when Mrs. Chatterton's French maid asked her respectfully if she would please be so good as to step up to her mistress's apartments, "_s'il vous plait_, Mees Polly."

"Yes, indeed," cried Polly, springing off from the window-seat, and forgetting the enchanted story-land immediately in the rush of delight.

"Oh, I have another chance to try to please her," she thought, skimming over the stairs. But she was careful to restrain her steps on reaching the room.

"You may take that paper," said Mrs. Chatterton, seating herself in her favorite chair, "and read to me. You know the things I desire to hear, or ought to." She pointed to the society news, _Town Talk_, lying on the table.

Polly took it up, glad to be of the least service, and whirled it over to get the fashion items, feeling sure that now she was on the right road to favor.

"Don't rattle it," cried Mrs. Chatterton, in a thin, high voice.

"I'll try not to," said Polly, wishing she could be deft-handed like Mamsie, and doing her best to get to the inner page quietly.

"And why don't you read where you are?" cried Mrs. Chatterton. "Begin on the first page. I wish to hear that first."

Polly turned the sheet back again, and obeyed. But she hadn't read more than a paragraph when she came to a dead stop.

"Go on," commanded Mrs. Chatterton, her eyes sparkling. She had forgotten to play with her rings, being perfectly absorbed in the delicious morsels of exceedingly unsavory gossip she was hearing.

Polly laid the paper in her lap, and her two hands fell upon it. "Oh, Mrs. Chatterton," she cried, the color flying from her cheek, "please let me read something else to you. Mamsie wouldn't like me to read this." The brown eyes filled with tears, and she leaned forward imploringly.

"Stuff and nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Chatterton pa.s.sionately. "I command you to read that, girl. Do you hear me?"

"I cannot," said Polly, in a low voice. "Mamsie wouldn't like it." But it was perfectly distinct, and fell upon the angry ears clearly; and storm as she might, Mrs. Chatterton knew that the little country maiden would never bend to her will in this case.

"I would have you to know that I understand much better than your mother possibly can, what is for your good to read. Besides, she will never know."

"Mamsie knows every single thing that we children do," cried Polly decidedly, and lifting her pale face; "and she understands better than any one else about what we ought to do, for she is our mother."

"What arrant nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Chatterton pa.s.sionately, and unable to control herself at the prospect of losing Polly for a reader, which she couldn't endure, as she thoroughly enjoyed her services in that line. She got out of her chair, and paced up and down the long apartment angrily, saying all sorts of most disagreeable things, that Polly only half heard, so busy was she debating in her own mind what she ought to do. Should she run out of the room, and leave this dreadful old woman that every one in the house was tired of? Surely she had tried enough to please her, but she could not do what Mamsie would never approve of. And just as Polly had about decided to slip out, she looked up.

Mrs. Chatterton, having exhausted her pa.s.sion, as it seemed to do no good, was returning to her seat, with such a dreary step and forlorn expression that she seemed ten years older. She really looked very feeble, and Polly broke out impulsively, "Oh, let me read the other part of the paper, dear Mrs. Chatterton. May I?"

"Read it," said Mrs. Chatterton ungraciously, and sat down in her favorite chair.

Polly, scarcely believing her ears, whirled over the sheet, and determined to read as well as she possibly could, managed to throw so much enthusiasm into the fashion hints and social items, that presently Mrs. Chatterton's eyes were sparkling again, although she was deprived of her unsavory morsels.

And before long she was eagerly telling Polly to read over certain dictates of the Paris correspondent, who was laying down the law for feminine dress, and calling again for the last information of the movements of members of her social set, till there could be no question of her enjoyment.

Polly, not knowing or caring how long she had been thus occupied, so long as Mrs. Chatterton was happy, was only conscious that Hortense came back from the errands, which occasioned only a brief pause.

"Put the parcels down," said Mrs. Chatterton, scarcely glancing at her, "I cannot attend to you now. Go on, Polly."

So Polly went on, until the fashionable and social world had been so thoroughly canva.s.sed that even Mrs. Chatterton was quite convinced that she could get no more from the paper.

"You may go now," she said, but with a hungry glance for the first page.

Then she tore her gaze away, and repeated more coldly than ever, "You may go."

Polly ran off, dismayed to find how happy she was at the release. Her feet, unaccustomed to sitting still so long, were numb, and little p.r.i.c.kles were running up and down her legs. She hurried as fast as she could into Mamsie's room, feeling in need of all the good cheer she could find.

"Mrs. Fisher has gone out," said Jane, going along the hall.

"Gone out!" repeated Polly, "Oh, where? Do you know, Jane?"

"I don't exactly know," said Jane, "but she took Miss Phronsie; and I think it's shopping they went for. Mr. King has taken them in the carriage."

"Oh, I know it is," cried Polly, and a dreadful feeling surged through her. Why had she spent all this time with that horrible old woman, and lost this precious treat!

"They thought you had gone to the Salisbury School," said Jane, wishing she could give some comfort, "for they wanted you awfully to go."

"And now I've lost it all," cried Polly at a white heat--"all this perfectly splendid time with Grandpapa and Mamsie and Phronsie just for the sake of a horrible--"

Then she broke short off, and ran back into Mamsie's room, and flung herself down by the bed, just as she used to do by the four-poster in the bedroom of the little brown house.

"Why, Polly, child!" Mother Fisher's voice was very cheery as she came in, Phronsie hurrying after.

"I don't see her," began Phronsie in a puzzled way, and peering on all sides. "Where is she, Mamsie?"

Mrs. Fisher went over and laid her hand on Polly's brown head. "Now, Phronsie, you may run out, that is a good girl." She leaned over, and set a kiss on Phronsie's red lips.

"Is Polly sick?" asked Phronsie, going off to the door obediently, but looking back with wondering eyes.

"No, dear, I think not," said Mrs. Fisher. "Run along, dear."

"I am so glad she isn't sick," said Phronsie, as she went slowly off.

Yet she carried a troubled face.

"I ought to go and see how Sinbad is," she decided, as she went downstairs. This visit was an everyday performance, to be carefully gone through with. So she pa.s.sed out of the big side doorway, to the veranda.

"There is Michael now," she cried joyfully, espying that individual raking up the west lawn. So skipping off, she flew over to him. This caught the attention of little d.i.c.k from the nursery window.

"Hurry up there!" he cried crossly to Battles, who was having a hard time anyway getting him into a fresh sailor suit.

"Oh, d.i.c.ky--d.i.c.ky!" called mamma softly from her room.

"I can't help it, mamma; Battles is slow and poky," he fumed.

"Oh, no, dear," said his mother; "Battles always gets you ready very swiftly, as well as nicely."

Battles, a comfortable person, turned her round face with a smile toward the door. "And if you was more like your mamma, Master d.i.c.k, you'd be through with dressing, and make everything more pleasant to yourself and to every one else."