The morning after the incident following Peg's disobedience in going to the dance, and her subsequent rebellion and declaration of independence, found all the inmates of Regal Villa in a most unsettled condition. Peg had, as was indicated in a preceding chapter remained by Ethel's side until morning, when, seeing that her cousin was sleeping peacefully, she had gone to her own room to prepare for her leaving.
One thing she was positive about—she would take nothing out of that house she did not bring into it—even to a heartache.
She entered the family a month before Gore at heart—well, she was leaving it in a like condition.
Whilst she was making her few little preparations, Mrs. Chichester was reviewing the whole situation in her room. She was compelled to admit, however outraged her feelings may have been the previous night, that should Peg carry out her intention to desert them, the family would be in a parlous condition. The income from Mr. Kingsnorth's will was indeed the one note of relief to the distressed household. She had passed a wretched night, and after a cup of tea in her room, and a good long period of reflection, she decided to seek the aid of the head of the family—her son.
She found him in the morning-room lying full length on a lounge reading the "Post." He jumped up directly he saw her, led her over to the lounge, kissed her, put her down gently beside him and asked her how she was feeling.
"I didn't close my eyes all night," answered the unhappy old lady.
"Isn't that rotten?" said Alaric sympathetically. "I was a bit plungy myself—first one side and then the other." And he yawned and stretched languidly. "Hate to have one's night's rest broken," he concluded. Mrs. Chichester looked at him sadly.
"What is to be done?" she asked, despair in every note.
"We must get in forty winks during the day some time," he replied, encouragingly.
"No, no, Alaric. I mean about Margaret?"
"Oh! The imp? Nothin' that I can see. She's got it into her stubborn little head that she's had enough of us, and that's the end of it!"
"And the end of our income," summed up Mrs. Chichester, pathetically.
"Well, you were a bit rough on her, mater. Now, I come to think of it we've all been a bit rough on her—except ME. I've made her laugh once or twice—poor little soul. After all, suppose she did want to dance? What's the use of fussing? LET her, I say. LET her. Better SHE should dance and STAY, than for US to starve if she GOES."
"Don't reproach me, dear. I did my duty. How could I consent to her going? A girl of her age!"
"Girl! Why, they're grown women with families in America at her age."
"Thank God they're not in England."
"They will be some day, mater. They're kickin' over the traces more and more every day. Watch 'em in a year or two, I say, watch 'em. One time women kept on the pavement. Now they're out in the middle of the road—and in thousands! Mark me! What ho!"
"They are not women!" ejaculated Mrs. Chichester severely.
"Oh, bless me, yes. They're women all right. I've met 'em. Listened to 'em talk. Some of 'em were rippers. Why, there was one girl I really have rather a fash on. Great big girl she is with a deep voice. She had me all quivery for a while." And his mind ran back over his "Militant" past and present.
"Just when I had begun to have some hope of her!" Alaric started.
"I didn't know you met her. Do you know Marjory Fairbanks?"
"No," replied Mrs. Chichester, almost sharply: "I mean Margaret."
"Oh! The little devil? Did ye? I never did. Not a hope! I've always felt she ought to have the inscription on dear old Shakespeare's grave waving in front of her all the time 'Good friend, for Heaven's sake forbear.' There's no hope for her, mater. Believe ME."
"I thought that perhaps under our influence—in time—"
"Don't you think it. She will always be a Peter Pan. Never grow up. She'd play elfish tricks if she had a nursery full of infants."
"But," persisted the old lady, "some GOOD man—one day might change that."
"Ah! But where is he? Good men who'd take a girl like that in hand are very scarce, mater—very scarce indeed. Oh, no. Back she goes to America to-day, and off I go to-morrow to work. Must hold the roof up, mater, and pacify the tradesmen. I've given up the doctor idea—takes too long to make anything. And it's not altogether a nice way to earn your living. No; on the whole, I think—Canada. . ."
Mrs. Chichester rose in alarm
"Canada! my boy!"
"Nice big place—plenty of room. We're all so crowded together here in England. All the professions are chock-full with people waitin' to squeeze in somewhere. Give me the new big countries! England is too old and small. A fellow with my temperament can hardly turn round and take a full breath in an island our size. Out there, with millions of acres to choose from, I'll just squat down on a thousand or so, raise cattle, and in a year or two I'll be quite independent. Then back I'll come here and invest it. See?"
"Don't go away, from me, Alaric. I couldn't bear that."
"All right—if you say so, mater. But it does seem a shame to let all that good land go to waste when it can be had for the asking."
"Well, I'll wander round the fields for a bit, and thrash it all out. 'Stonishing how clear a fellow's head gets in the open air. Don't you worry, mater—I'll beat the whole thing out by myself."
He patted the old lady gently on the shoulder, and humming a music-hall ballad cheerfully, started off into the garden. He had only gone a few steps when his mother called to him. He stopped. She joined him excitedly.
"Oh, Alaric! There is a way—one way that would save us." And she trembled as she paused, as if afraid to tell him what the alternative was.
"Is there, mater? What is it?"
"It rests with you, dear."
"Does it? Very good. I'll do it."
"Will you?"
"Honour bright, I will."
"Whatever it is?"
"To save you and Ethel and the roof, 'course I will. Now you've got me all strung up. Let me hear it."
She drew him into a little arbour in the rose-garden out of sight and hearing of the open windows.
"Alaric?" she asked, in a tone that suggested their fate hung on his answer: "Alaric! Do you LIKE her?"
"Like whom?"
"Margaret! Do you?"
"Here and there. She amuses me like anything at times. She drew a map of Europe once that I think was the most fearful and wonderful thing I have ever seen. She said it was the way her father would like to see Europe. She had England, Scotland and Wales in GERMANY, and the rest of the map was IRELAND. Made me laugh like anything." And he chuckled at the remembrance.
Suddenly Mrs. Chichester placed both of her hands on his shoulders and with tears in her eyes exclaimed:
"Oh! my boy! Alaric! My son!"
"Hello!" cried the astonished youth. "What is it? You're not goin' to cry, are ye?"
She was already weeping copiously as she gasped between her sobs:
"Oh! If you only COULD."
"COULD? WHAT?"
"Take that little wayward child into your life and mould her."
"Here, one moment, mater: let me get the full force of your idea. You want ME to MOULD Margaret?"
"Yes, dear."
"Ha!" he laughed uneasily. Then said decidedly: "No, mater, no. I can do most things, but as a moulder—oh, no. Let Ethel do it—if she'll stay, that is."
"Alaric, my dear—I mean to take her really into your life 'to have and to hold.'" And she looked pleadingly at him through her tear-dimmed eyes.
"But, I don't want to hold her, mater!" reasoned her son.
"It would be the saving of her," urged the old lady. "That's all very well, but what about me?"
"It would be the saving of us all!" she insisted significantly. But Alaric was still obtuse. "Now, how would my holding and moulding Margaret save us?" The old lady placed her cards deliberately, on the table as she said sententiously: "She would stay with us here—if you were—engaged to her!" The shock had cone. His mother's terrible alternative was now before him in all its naked horror. A shiver ran through him. The thought of a man, with a future as brilliant as his, being blighted at the outset by such a misalliance. He felt the colour leave his face. He knew he was ghastly pale. The little arbour seemed to close in on him and stifle him. He could scarcely breathe. He murmured, his eyes half closed, as if picturing some vivid nightmare: "Engaged! Don't, mother, please." He trembled again: "Good lord! Engaged to that tomboy!" The thought seemed to strike him to the very core of his being. He who might ally himself with anyone sacrificing his hopes of happiness and advancement with a child of the earth.
"Don't, mother!" he repeated in a cry of entreaty.
"She has the blood of the Kingsnorths!" reminded, Mrs. Chichester. "It is pretty well covered up in O'Connell Irish," replied Alaric bitterly. "Please don't say any more, mater. You have upset me for the day. Really, you have for the whole day." But his mother was not to be shaken so easily in her determination. She went on:
"She has the breeding of my sister Angela, dear."
"You wouldn't think it to watch her and listen to her. Now, once and for all" and he tried to pass his mother and go into the garden.
There was no escape. Mrs. Chichester held him firmly:
"She will have five thousand pounds a year when she is twenty-one!"
She looked the alarmed youth straight in the eyes. She was fighting for her own. She could not bear to think of parting with this home where she had lived so happily with her husband, and where her two children were born and reared. Even though Peg was not of the same caste, much could be done with her. Once accept her into the family and the rest would be easy.
As she looked piercingly into Alaric's eyes, he caught the full significance of the suggestion. His lips pursed to whistle—but no sound came through them. He muttered hoarsely, as though he were signing away his right to happiness.
"Five thousand pounds a year! Five thousand of the very best!" Mrs. Chichester took the slowly articulated words in token of acceptance. He would do it! She knew he would! Always ready to rise to a point of honour and to face a duty or confront a danger, he was indeed her son.
She took him in her arms and pressed his reluctant and shrinking body to her breast.
"Oh, my boy!" she wailed joyfully. "My dear, dear boy!"
Alaric disengaged himself alertly.
"Here, half a minute, mater. Half a minute, please: One can't burn all one's boats like that, without a cry for help."
"Think what it would mean, dear! Your family preserved, and a brand snatched from the burning!"
"That's just it. It's all right savin' the family. Any cove'll do that at a pinch. But I do not see myself as a 'brand-snatcher' Besides, I am not ALTOGETHER at liberty."
"What?" cried his mother.
"Oh, I've not COMMITTED myself to anything. But I've been three times to hear that wonderful woman speak—once on the PLATFORM! And people are beginning to talk. She thinks no end of me. Sent me a whole lot of stuff last week—'ADVANCED LITERATURE' she calls it. I've got 'em all upstairs. Wrote every word of 'em herself. Never saw a woman who can TALK and WRITE as she can. And OUTSIDE of all that I'm afraid I've more or less ENCOURAGED her. And there you are—the whole thing in a nutshell."
"It would unite our blood, Alaric," the fond mother insisted.
"Oh, hang our blood! I beg your pardon, mater, but really I can't make our blood the FIRST thing."
"It would settle you for life, dear," she suggested after a pause.
"I'd certainly be settled all right," in a despairing tone.
"Think what it would mean, Alaric."
"I am, mater. I'm thinking—and thinking awfully hard. Now, just a moment. Don't let either of us talk. Just let us think. I know how much is at stake for the family, and YOU realise how much is at stake for ME, don't you?"
"Indeed I do. And if I didn't think you would be happy I would not allow it—indeed I wouldn't."
Alaric thought for a few moments.
The result of this mental activity took form and substance as follows:
"She is not half-bad-lookin'—at times—when she's properly dressed."
"I've seen her look almost beautiful!" cried Mrs. Chichester.
Alaric suddenly grew depressed.
"Shockin' temper, mater!" and he shook his head despondently.
"That would soften under the restraining hand of affection!" reasoned his mother.
"She would have to dress her hair and drop DOGS. I will not have a dog all over the place, and I do like tidiness in women. Especially their hair. In that I would have to be obeyed."
"The woman who LOVES always OBEYS!" cried his mother.
"Ah! There we have it!" And Alaric sprang up and faced the old lady. "There we have it! DOES she LOVE me?"
Mrs. Chichester looked fondly at her only son and answered:
"How could she be NEAR you for the last month and NOT love you?"
Alaric nodded:
"Of course there is that. Now, let me see—just get a solid grip on the whole thing. IF she LOVES me—and taking all things into consideration—for YOUR sake and darling ETHEL'S and for my—that is—"
He suddenly broke off, took his mother's hand between both of his and pressed it encouragingly, and with the courage of hopefulness, he said:
"Anyway, mater, it's a go! I'll do it. It will take a bit of doin', but I'll do it."
"Bless you, my boy," said the overjoyed mother, "Bless you."
As they came out of the little arbour it seemed as if Fate had changed the whole horizon for the Chichester family.
Mrs. Chichester was happy in the consciousness that her home and her family would lie free from the biting grip of debt.
Alaric, on the other hand, seemed to have all the sunlight suddenly stricken out of his life. Still, it was his DUTY, and duty was in the Chichester motto.
As mother and son walked slowly toward the house, they looked up, and gazing through a tiny casement of the little Mauve-Room was Peg, her face white and drawn.
Alaric shivered again as he thought of his sacrifice.
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