Peggy Stewart at School Part 4

"Well, den, tell me what yo' _ain't_ cryin' fo', kase ef yo' ain't cryin' fer somethin' yo' _want_ yo' sh.o.r.e mus' be a-crying fo' somethin'

yo' _don't_ want," was Mammy's bewildering argument. "An' I bait yo' I ain't gotter go far fer ter ketch de thing yo' _don'_ want neither," and the old woman looked ready to deal with that same cause once it came within her grasp.

Peggy straightened up. This order of things would never do. If she acted like a spoiled child simply because someone to whom she had taken an instinctive dislike had come into her home, she would presently have the whole household demoralized.

"Mammy, listen to me."

Instinctively the blood of generations of servitude responded to Peggy's tone.

"I have been terribly rude to a guest. I lost my temper and I'm ashamed of myself."

"What did you say to her, baby?"

"I didn't say anything, I just acted outrageously."

"An' what _she_ been a-sayin' ter yo'?"

Peggy only colored.

Mammy nodded her bead significantly. "Ain't I _know_ dat! Yo' cyant tell _me_ nothin' 'bout de Stewart blood. No-siree! I know it from Alphy to Omegy; backards an' forrards. Now we-all kin look out fer trouble ahead.

But I'se got dis fer ter say: Some fools jist nach.e.l.ly go a-prancin' an'

a-cavortin' inter places whar de angils outen heaven da.s.sent no mo'n peek. If yo' tells me I must keep ma mouf shet, I'se gotter keep it shet, but Ma.s.sa Neil is allers a projectin' 'bout ma safety-valve, an'

don' yo' tie it down too tight, honey, er somethin' gwine bus' wide open 'fore long. Now come 'long an' wash yo' purty face. I ain' like fer ter see no tears-stains on _yo'_ baby. No, I don'. Den yo' go git on Shashai an' call yo' body-gyard and 'Z'ritza an' yo' ride ten good miles fo' yo'

come back hyer. By _dat_ time yo' git yo' min' settle down an' yo'

stummic ready fo' de lunch wha' Sis' Cynthia gwine fix fo' yo'. I seen de perjections ob it an' it fair mak' ma mouf run water lak' a dawg's.

Run 'long, honey," and Mammy led the way down the side stairs, and watched Peggy as she took a side path to the paddock.

As she was in and out of her saddle a dozen times a day she wore a divided skirt more than half the time--another of Mrs. Stewart's grievances--and upon reaching the paddock her whistle soon brought her pets tearing across it to her. Their greeting was warm enough to banish a legion of blue imps, and a joyous little laugh bubbled to her lips as she opened the paddock gate and let the trio file through. Then in the old way she sprang upon Shashai's back and with a gay laugh cried:

"Four bells for the harness house."

Away they swept, as Peggy's voice and knees directed Shashai, Tzaritza, who had joined Peggy as she stepped from the side porch, bounding on ahead with joyous barks.

Peggy called for a bridle, which Shelby himself brought, saying as he slipped the light snaffle into Shashai's sensitive mouth and the headstall over his ears:

"So you've bruck trainin', Miss Peggy, an' are a-going for a real old-time warm-up? Well, I reckon it's about time, an' the best thing you can do, for you look sort o' pinin' an' down-in-the-mouth. Light out, little girl, an' come back lookin' like you uster; the purtiest sight G.o.d ever created for a man, woman or child ter clap eyes on. Take good care of her, Shashai, and you too, Tzaritza, cause you won't get another like her very soon."

Shelby's eyes were quick to discern the traces of Peggy's little storm, and he was by no means slow in drawing deductions. Peggy blushed, but said:

"I guess Daddy was right when he said I'd better go to school this year.

You-all will spoil me if I stay here. Good-by, dear old Shelby, I love everyone on the place even if they do spoil me," and away she swept, as bonny a little bareback rider as ever sat a horse.

Meanwhile, up at the house events were shaping with the rapidity of a moving picture show.

When Peggy left her so abruptly Madam Stewart sat still for a few moments, pondering her next step. She had arrived at some very definite conclusions and intended carrying them out without loss of time. Her first move in that direction led her into the library where she wrote a letter to her brother-in-law. It was while she was thus occupied that Mammy had found Peggy and sent her for her ride. Then Mammy sought Harrison. Ordinarily, Mammy would have died before consulting Harrison about anything concerning Peggy, but here was a common issue, and if Mammy did not know that a house divided against itself must fall, she certainly felt the force of that argument. In Harrison she found a sympathetic listener, for the old housekeeper had been made to feel Mrs. Stewart's presence in the house in hundreds of irritating little ways. Mammy told of finding Peggy in tears, though she could not, of course, tell their cause. But Harrison needed no cause: the tears in themselves were all the cause she required to know.

Their conversation took place in the pantry and at the height of Harrison's protest against the new order of things a footfall was heard in the dining-room beyond. Thinking it Jerome's and quite ready to add one more to their league of defenders of Peggy's cause, Harrison pushed open the swinging door and stepped into the dining-room with all of her New England-woman's nervous activity. Mrs. Stewart stood in the room surveying with a critical, calculating eye, every detail of its stately, chaste appointments, for nothing had ever been changed.

Mrs. Stewart looked up as Harrison bounced in.

"O Harrison, you are exactly the person I wished to speak with," she said. "There are to be a few changes made in Mr. Stewart's domestic arrangements. In future I shall a.s.sume control of his home and relieve Miss Peggy of all responsibility. You may come to me for all orders."

She paused, and for the moment Harrison was too dumbfounded to reply, while Mammy in the pantry, having overheard every word, was noiselessly clapping her old hands together and murmuring: "Ma Lawd! Ma Lawd! _Now_ I knows de sou'ce ob dat chile's tears." Before Harrison could recover herself Mrs. Stewart continued:

"Dr. Llewellyn will be here tomorrow for the weekend, and as I am to be mistress of the household it is more seemly that I preside at the head of the table. Tell Jerome that I shall sit there in future. And now I wish you to take me through the house that I may know more of its appointments than I have thus far been able to learn."

Without a word Harrison led the way into the hall, and up the beautiful old colonial stairway.

Peggy's sitting-room and bed-room were situated at the south-east corner of the house overlooking the bay. Back of her bath and dressing-rooms were two guest rooms. A broad hall ran the length of the second story and upon the opposite side of it had been Mrs. Neil Stewart's pretty sitting-room, which corresponded with Peggy's and her bed-room separated from her husband's by the daintiest of dressing and bath-rooms. Neil Stewart's "den" was at the rear. Beyond were lavatories, linen-room, house-maid's room and every requirement of a well-ordered home.

Mrs. Peyton began by entering Peggy's sitting-room, a liberty she had not hitherto taken, but she felt pretty sure Peggy was not in the house.

At any rate she had made her plunge and did not mean to be diverted from her object now. Martha Harrison was simply boiling with wrath at the intrusion.

"You are a wonderfully capable woman, Martha. I see I shall have very light duties," was Mrs. Peyton's patronizing comment.

"_Harrison_, if you please, ma'am," emphasized that person.

"Oh, indeed? As you prefer. Now let me see the rooms on the opposite side of the hall."

Perhaps had Mrs. Peyton asked Harrison to lead her into the little mausoleum, built generations ago in the whispering white pine grove upon the hill back of the house, it could not have been a greater liberty or sacrilege. Not so great, possibly. In all the nine years nothing had been changed. They were sacred to the entire household and especially sacred to Harrison who had held it her especial privilege to keep them immaculate. In the bed-room the toilet and dressing tables held the same articles Mrs. Neil had used; her work-table stood in the same sunny window. In the sitting-room the books she loved and had read again and again were in the case, or lying upon the tables where she had left them. It seemed as though she might have stepped from the room barely ten minutes before. There was nothing depressing about it. On the contrary, it impressed upon the observer the near presence of a sweet, cultivated personality. The sitting-room was a shrine for both Peggy and her father, and it was his wish that it be kept exactly as he had known and loved it during the ideal hours he had spent in it with wife and child. He and Peggy had spent many a precious one there since its radiant, gracious mistress had slept in the pine grove. Harrison crossed the hall and opened the door, still mute as an oyster. Mrs. Stewart swept in, Toinette, who had followed her, tearing across the room ahead of her and darting into every nook and corner. At that moment the obnoxious poodle came nearer her doom than she had ever come in all her useless life, for Harrison was a-quiver to hurl her through the open window.

"What charming rooms," exclaimed Madam, trailing languidly from one to the other, touching a book here, some exquisite curio there, the carved ivory toilet articles on the dresser. The morning sunlight, tempered by the green and white awnings at the great bowed-windows filled the tastefully decorated rooms with a restful glow. They were beautiful rooms in every sense of the word.

"Very charming indeed and very useless apparently. They seem not to have been occupied in months. They are far more desirable than those a.s.signed to me at the North side of the house. The view of the bay is perfect. As I am to be here indefinitely, instead of one month only, you may have my things moved over to this suite, Harrison. I shall occupy it in future."

"Occupy _this_ suite?" Harrison almost gasped the words.

"Certainly. Why not? You need not look as though I had ordered you to build a fire in the middle of the floor," and Mrs. Peyton laughed half scornfully.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but when _Mr. Neil_ gives the order to move your things into this suite, I'll move them here. These was his wife's rooms and his orders to me was never to change 'em and I never shall 'till _he_ tells me to. There's some things in this world that can't be tampered with. Please call your dog, ma'am; she's scratchin' that couch cover to ribbons."

The enemy's guns were silenced for the time being. She picked up her poodle and swept from the room. Harrison paused only long enough to close all the doors, lock them and place the keys in her little hand bag. Then she departed to her own quarters to give vent to her pent-up wrath.

Mrs. Stewart retired to her own room.

The next evening Dr. Llewellyn arrived and when he took his seat at the table his gentle face was troubled: Mrs. Peyton had usurped Peggy's place at the head. Peggy sat opposite to him. She had accepted the situation gracefully, not one word of protest pa.s.sing her lips and she did her best to entertain her guests. But poor old Jerome's soul was so outraged that for the first time in his life he was completely demoralized. Only one person in the entire household seemed absolutely and entirely satisfied and that was Harrison, and her self-satisfaction so irritated Mammy that the good old creature sputtered out:

"Kingdom come, is yo' gittin' ter de pint when yo' kin see sich gwines-on an' not r'ar right spang up an' _sa.s.s_ dat 'oman?"

"Just wait!" was Harrison's cryptic reply.

CHAPTER V

RUCTIONS!