"Certainly! Certainly! It makes no difference," said Peggy loftily; and thus it happened that the girls went upstairs to dress that evening without knowing who would be waiting to receive them when they made their entrance into the drawing-room. The blouses were laid out in the dressing-room which connected the two bedrooms, and to a casual glance there was no doubt which was the more successful. The one could boast no remove from the commonplace, the other was both artistic and uncommon, a garment which might have come direct from the hands of a French _modiste_. Eunice's face fell as she looked, and she breathed a sigh of depression.

"Oh, Peggy, how horrid mine looks beside yours! What a mean, skimpy little rag! I am ashamed to appear in it. You will look beautiful, perfectly beautiful! You have done it splendidly."

Peggy gave a murmur of polite disclaimer, and pursed in her lips to restrain a smile.

"Wait until they are on, dear. You can never tell how a thing looks until it is on," she said rea.s.suringly; but alas, for Peggy, little did she dream how painfully she would discover the truth of her own words.

A quarter of an hour later Eunice was hooking the front of her bodice, when the door burst open and in rushed Peggy, red in the face, gasping for breath, her neck craned forward, her arms sticking out stiffly on either side, for all the world like a waxen figure in a shop window.

"My neck!" she gasped. "My sleeves! They torture me! My arms are screwed up like sausages. The collar band cuts like a knife. I'm like a trussed fowl--I'll burst! I know I shall! I'll die of asphyxiation.

What shall I do? What shall I do? What can have happened to make it like this?"

"Oh dear! oh dear! You do look uncomfortable. It was big enough when you tried it on last. You must have drawn in the arm-holes while you were sewing them. Yes, you have! I can see the puckers, and the sleeves are stretched so tight too. You didn't take them in again, surely?"

"Just a tiny bit. They looked so baggy. But the collar, Eunice, the collar! For pity's sake take it off! I shall be raw in a moment. Take the scissors, pull--tug! Get it off as quick as you can."

"Take it off! But then what will you--" pleaded Eunice; but Peggy's eyes flashed at her with so imperious a command that she began to snip without further protest. The band came off easily--astonishingly easily, and Peggy heaved a sigh of relief, and flapped her arms in the air.

"When! That's better. I can breathe again. I could not have borne it another moment. Now I should be fairly comfortable, if only--only--the sleeves were a little bigger! It is too late to let them out, but just round the arm-holes, eh? A little tiny snip here and there to relieve the pressure?"

She put her head on one side in her most insinuating fashion, but Eunice was adamant. Never, she protested, would she consent to such a step.

No seam could be expected to hold, if treated in such fashion. How would Peggy like it if her sleeve came off altogether in the course of the evening? There would be humiliation! Better a thousand times a trifling discomfort than such a downfall as that!

"Trifling!" echoed Peggy sadly. "Trifling indeed. Shows all you know.

I am suffering tortures, my dear, and you stand there, cool and comfortable, preaching at me!" She paused for a moment, and for the first time stared scrutinously at her friend. Eunice looked charming, the simplicity of her dress giving a quaint, Quaker-like appearance to the sweet face. Plain as her blouse was, it was a remarkable success for a first effort, and though it had necessarily a dozen faults, the whole effect was neat and dainty.

"What did I tell you?" groaned Peggy dismally. "Who looks better now, you or I? I look 'beautiful,' don't I, perfectly beautiful! It's so becoming to have no collar band, and one's arms sticking out like flails! I sha'n't be able to eat a bite. It's as much as I can do to sit still, much less move about. I'll put on a fichu, and then I can leave some hooks unfastened, to give myself a little air."

It seemed, indeed, the best solution, since somehow or other it was necessary to conceal the jagged silk round the neck. Peggy pinned on a square of chiffon; but the numerous tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs over which it lay gave a clumsy appearance to her usually trim little figure, while discomfort and annoyance steadily raised the colour in her cheeks. She was conscious of appearing at her worst, and for one moment was tempted to throw aside her plan, and take to ordinary evening-dress. Only for one moment, however, for the next she decided roundly against so mean a course. What if she had failed? her guest had succeeded, and why rob her of praise well-earned? After all, would she not have been a hundred times more distressed if positions had been reversed, and Eunice was suffering her present discomfort? The cloud left her brow, and she led the way downstairs with a jaunty air.

"Come along, come along! I've always vowed that I enjoyed a good beating, and now I've got a chance of proving the truth of my words.

You are a born dressmaker, my dear, and the sooner I retire from the business the better. You will be the hero of the occasion, and I shall be the b.u.t.t; but don't look so remorseful, I implore you. It has been a great joke, and some day--years hence!--I may even see some humour in the present condition of my arms. I'm accustomed to being teased, and don't care one little bit how much they deride me!"

A moment later, as the drawing-room door opened, she realised indeed how little she cared, for Rob was not there. His excuses had evidently already been made, for no allusion was made to his absence, while her own appearance with Eunice was the signal for a general rising, every one exclaiming and applauding, and walking round in admiring circles.

Eunice was overwhelmed with congratulations, while Peggy had to run the gauntlet of remorseless family banter.

Only one voice was raised in her behalf, but Hector Darcy declared with unblushing effrontery that he voted in her favour, and held to his decision, in spite of all that the others could say. Peggy deplored his want of taste, yet felt a dreary sense of comfort in his fealty. It soothed the ache at her heart, and made her so unconsciously gentle in return that the major's hopes went up at a bound.

After dinner, chairs were carried into the verandah, and Peggy made no demur when Hector set her seat and his own at a little distance from the rest. Perhaps at heart she was even a little grateful to him for being so anxious to enjoy her society, for no one else seemed to desire it for that moment. Colonel and Mrs Saville were talking contentedly together, Arthur was engrossed with Eunice, Rob--ah, where was Rob? Had he made up his mind never to enter Yew Hedge again? Peggy turned her conversational gift to account, and led the subject so subtly in the way she would have it go, that presently Hector found himself explaining the cause of his brother's absence, believing that that explanation was entirely of his own offering.

"Rob is busy writing a paper for some magazine or review, and can think of nothing else. You know what he is when he once gets mounted on his hobby! He would have thought it a terrible waste of time to have left his papers to come out to dinner."

Well, well, the time had been when Rob would not have thought it waste of time to spend an evening with his friend; when not even an article for a review would have prevented him from witnessing the completion of an enterprise in which his partner was interested.

It was a very woe-begone Peggy who crept into bed that evening. Her arms were stiff and sore from their long pressure, there were the deep red marks on her shoulders where the seams had pressed into the flesh, but the ache in her heart was worse to bear than either one or the other. She burrowed her little brown head into the pillow, and the salt tears trickled down her nose.

"n.o.body loves me!" she sobbed. "n.o.body loves me! Mellicent was right.

He loves beetles better than me!"

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

A week later Arthur's picnic came off under circ.u.mstances of unusual _eclat_. The extravagant fellow had arranged everything on so luxurious a scale that Mellicent sat in a dream of happiness, building castles in the air, in which she continually drove about in dog-carts, travelled in reserved carriages, and ate luncheons provided by Buzzard. Her plump face a.s.sumed quite a haughty aspect, as she mentally acknowledged the salutations of the crowd, and issued orders to flunkies, gorgeous in powder and knee-breeches. It was enough happiness just to sit and think of it, and munch the delicious chocolates which Arthur dispensed among his guests.

It was a pretty scene--that group of young people in the Pullman carriage, the girls in their white dresses, the tall, handsome men, the cheery little chaperon in the centre. The professor and Esther sat by a window whispering earnestly together, for having been separated for a weary length of ten whole days, they had naturally large arrears of talk to make up. Arthur pointed out the various objects of interest to Eunice, as the train whizzed past, and Peggy sat glued to the side of Mrs Bryce, determined not to be monopolised by Hector thus early in the day. Rob had come with his brother, but she felt little satisfaction in his presence, knowing that he had tried to refuse the invitation, and had only yielded on Arthur's a.s.sertion that he was needed for help, not ornament, and must come whether he liked it or not, to lend a hand with the oars. He looked pre-occupied and solemn, but was absolutely friendly in his manner, rejoicing in the fineness of the weather, and congratulating Peggy on the success of her dressmaking experiment, of which he had heard from his brother. To explain that Hector's report was entirely prejudiced, seemed but a tacit acknowledgment of his infatuation, and Peggy blushed in sheer anger at the perversity of Fate, the while she gave the true version of the affair, and dilated on her own sufferings.

"It will be a lesson to me for life not to interfere with the business of others, and take the bread out of the mouths of professionals by amateur interference," she concluded grandiloquently, and Rob smiled in his grave, kindly fashion. It seemed to Peggy that there was an added kindliness in his smile of late, and several times during the morning she looked up suddenly, to discover his eyes fixed upon her with a scrutiny at once so tender, so anxious, and so searching, that she was obliged to turn aside to conceal her tears.

When the train arrived at its destination, a couple of carriages conveyed the travellers on the next stage of their journey, and with their arrival at the little fishing village came the first hitch in the programme. Arthur had written in advance to ask that two of the best boats should be reserved for his party, and that a fisherman should be in readiness to go in each, so that his friends need not exert themselves more than they felt inclined. It is one thing, however, to despatch an order to the depths of the country, and quite another to find it fulfilled. As a matter of fact, the letter was even now lying unopened in the village post-office, and Arthur was confronted with the intelligence that men and boats had departed _en ma.s.se_ to attend a regatta which was taking place some miles along the coast. Only a few of the oldest and most unwieldy boats had been left behind, and neither man nor boy could be found to row them. Here was a fine predicament! A snapshot taken of the party at this moment would have been an eloquent study in disappointment, and each one looked expectantly at Arthur, waiting for him to find a solution of the difficulty.

"Here is a fine pickle! I'm furious with myself, and yet I don't see what more I could have done. There are two alternatives before us, so far as I can see--either we must get into one of these old tubs and row ourselves across, or give up the island altogether, and spend the day where we are."

At this there was a groan of dismay, for, truth to tell, the village was of an uninteresting character, and the sands felt like an oven in the shadeless noon. To spend the day here would indeed be waste of time, while only a few miles off lay the island of their dreams--that wonderful island, with the blue waves splashing its sh.o.r.es, the kindly trees shading its crest.

"The island! the island!" cried the girls in chorus, while the men looked at each other, braced themselves up, and said:

"We can do it. Why not? It will be a stiff pull, but the day is our own. We can take our time, and rest when we are tired. Let us go at once and choose a boat."

It was Dobson's choice, however, or very nearly so, for the only boats left were tubs indeed, in which a score of pa.s.sengers could have been accommodated as easily as eight. Large as they were, however, there was one member of the party who seemed diffident about their sea-going quality, and, wonderful to relate, that person was Peggy herself.

"Is it safe?" she kept asking. "Is it safe? Are you quite sure it is safe?"--and her companions stared in amazement at this sudden access of nervousness.

"Why, Peggy, you are surely not turning coward in your old age!" Arthur cried laughingly, as he dragged at the unwieldy bulk. "If you are afraid of this old bark, I don't know when you would feel safe. It is like going to sea in a pantechnicon!"

"And after a voyage to India, too! How funny! I am not a bit afraid, and I have never been out of England in my life. Are you afraid of being drowned?" chimed in Mellicent, with an air of superiority which goaded Peggy past endurance.

"I was not thinking of myself. It is possible sometimes to be nervous for another," she blurted out, and the next moment wished her tongue had been bitten off before she had uttered such a rash remark; for what could Rob think, or his companions either, but that the person for whom she was anxious was present among them? They had not heard Mrs Asplin's words of entreaty, or seen the strained expression on her face as she murmured, "Remember, dear! Oh, be sure to remember!"

She turned and walked along the sh.o.r.e by herself, clasping her hands in a pa.s.sion of longing and pity.

"I gave her my promise, and I'll keep it, whatever they think. It will be my fault if anything goes wrong. I know, and they don't!"

It was one o'clock before the island was reached, for the row out took a long time, despite the fact that the amateur oarsmen were all fairly proficient at their work. Even the professor pulled with a will, while to see haughty Hector in his shirt sleeves, with his hair matted on his forehead, was indeed a novel experience. Arthur was stroke, and Mellicent sat in front and coached him in his duty, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the company and his own unspeakable delight, and Eunice dabbled her hand in the water, and sent little showers of spray tossing up into the air.

Every now and then, when Arthur made a reply to Eunice more professedly deferential than usual, her eyes met his, and they smiled at each other--that smile of happy, mutual understanding which had grown common between them in the last few months. Peggy intercepted one of the glances, and felt at once rejoiced and sorrowful; rejoiced because it was good to see Arthur started on the way she would have him go, sorrowful because she realised, as many another had done before her, that his gain must also be her loss, and that just in proportion as Eunice became necessary to him her own importance must decrease.

When all was said and done, however, it was impossible to indulge in low spirits in the hours that followed. Oh, the delights of that island, the dear, shingly beach with its little pools full of a hundred briny treasures, the long trails of seaweeds, which were credited with the gift of foretelling weather as well as any barometer; the tiny crabs that burrowed among the stones; the sea anemones, the jelly-fish, so innocent to regard, so deadly to encounter. They were all there, with tiny little pink-lined sh.e.l.ls, and pebbles of marvellous transparency which must surely, surely, be worth taking to a lapidary to examine!

What cries of delight followed the landing, what hasty summoning of the whole party to witness some fresh discovery; what trippings on slippery stones, and splashing of fresh white dresses! Then, too, the long- checked pangs of hunger a.s.serted themselves, and would no longer be restrained, and the men were hardly allowed time to fasten the boat, go imperiously were they hurried on sh.o.r.e with the precious freight of hampers.

Lunch was spread beneath the tree, and was no sooner finished than Mellicent inquired, "When's tea?" a request which the hearers felt bound to deride, though in reality it found an echo in every heart.

Astonishing as it may appear, a picnic lunch invariably seems to create a longing for the cup which cheers, and on this occasion the sea air had a sleepifying influence which increased that desire.

"I re-ally think we had better have it soon. I can hardly keep from y- awning all the time!" cried Mrs Bryce, suiting the action to the word, and such was the result of infection that two pairs of hands went up to as many mouths even as she spoke.

"Very well, then, say four o'clock. Can't possibly have it before then," said Arthur, struggling vainly to keep his jaws together. "Oh, this will never do. Come down to the rocks, all of you, and get a good blow to freshen you up. I never saw such a company of sleepers!"

Eunice and Mellicent followed obediently enough, while the lovers seated themselves in a quiet corner, and Rob lay down on the sand beside one of the little pools, to watch the movements of the crawling insects. His trained glance was quick to understand the purport of what would have seemed aimless fittings to and fro to an ordinary observer, and soon out came notebook and pencil, and he was hard at work chronicling a dozen interesting discoveries. Peggy lingered behind to offer her help to Mrs Bryce, but that good lady, being secretly anxious to indulge in forty winks, seconded Hector Darcy's protest in so emphatic a manner that she had no loophole for delay. She strolled with him down to the sh.o.r.e, following Arthur and his companions, but not so closely that there was not a distance of several yards between the two big stones which had been selected as resting-places. So far as privacy of conversation was concerned, the yards might have been miles, for the waves dashed up with a continual murmur, and the breeze seemed to carry the sound of the voices far out to sea. Peggy clasped her hands on her knee, and gazed before her with dreamy eyes. Her little face looked very sweet and thoughtful, and Hector Darcy watched her beneath the brim of his hat, and built his own castle in the air, a castle which had grown dearer and more desirable ever since his return to England. The opportunity for which he had been waiting had come at last, and surely it was an omen for good that it had come by the side of that sea which had witnessed their meeting; which, if all went well, would witness their start together on the new life!

"I shall be going back to India soon, Peggy," he said softly. "The time is drawing near;" and Peggy looked in his face, and realised that what she had dreaded was at hand, and could not be avoided. She heard her own voice murmur words of conventional regret, but Hector took no notice except to look still deeper into her eyes.