In age she was about forty-five, in appearance she was short and stout, with a red face, and a quantity of white hair, which she piled on top of her head—à la Marie Antoinette—in order to increase her height. Ida and Juliet would as soon have thought of looking for their future stepmother in one of the maids of the household as in their useful “Peggy.” So it came about that while they were alternately worrying and caressing her, and in all respects, as they imagined, turning her round their little fingers, she was stealing a march on them, and saying to herself: “By-and-by the tables shall be turned, and all debts be paid off with interest.”
When, however, after a certain ceremony in a certain West End church, the tables were turned, and she began the attempt to pay off her debts, she found it was not quite so easy a task as she had anticipated. Ida and Juliet, individually, were a host in themselves; combined, they appeared to be invincible. They always seemed to be on the alert, and any attempt of hers to assert herself, or to stand on her dignity, was promptly nipped in the bud. They would allow her to spend an hour or so daily with the housekeeper, and to regulate generally the household routine, because that had been her province as Miss Pigott in the days of her general usefulness. When, however, it came to the issuing or accepting of invitations, the family exits from town or country houses, the annual visits to the moors, or to the sea, they simply ignored her, carried their wishes, or, rather, their commands, as of old to their father, bent him to their will as easily as one can bend a willow wand, and poor “Peggy,” whether she liked it or not, was obliged to follow their lead.
And they did it all so lightly and easily, without so much as a flushed face or a heightened voice. She, poor soul! with much travail of thought, and many a sleepless night, would concoct some elaborate plan for self-assertion, and the girls, with a little curl of their lips, a little arching of their brows, and some quick, bright speech, would bring it all to nought in a moment, and she would think herself fortunate if she were allowed to acknowledge her defeat, and withdraw from the scene without having been made to look foolish before a roomful of people.
It was all in vain for her to appeal to her husband. Alone with her he would be sympathetic, and vow that his authority should support hers. Brought face to face with his daughters, however, he would at once surrender mutely, and then get out of the way as quickly as possible.
The chances were that Miss Pigott would never have become Lady Culvers if Ida and Juliet had not, at their own request, gone without their chaperon on a three months’ visit to friends in Ireland, thus giving their father time and opportunity not only to woo and to win his bride, but also absolutely to fix his wedding-day without let or hindrance.
VII
“O wild western light in a winter’s sky,
I have watched your radiance flame and die,”
read Arthur Glynde, in the impassioned tone which poets, as a rule, reserve for their own productions.
Juliet held up her hand.
“No,” she said, languidly, “I can’t realise a winter’s sky on this sultry morning. Besides, Peggy and I have just had—well, a passage of arms, call it, and your second line too painfully recalls Peggy’s face a moment ago.”
The two were seated in Lord Culvers’s study, a quiet, cool room, at the back of the house, where they were not likely to be disturbed by untimely callers.
These tête-à-têtes with the young poet had, in a measure, been forced upon Juliet. With that craving for an audience which goes hand in hand with authorship, he had come to the house early one morning with a roll of manuscript under his arm, and, taking Lord Culvers by surprise, had asked permission to read to him “a stanza or two,” as he was anxious for the opinion of a competent critic as to whether the poems were worthy of publication.
Lord Culvers had listened patiently for twenty minutes, then he had recollected an engagement.
“Excuse me, Glynde,” he had said, noting that the packet of manuscript was far from exhausted, “if you don’t mind, I’ll send Juliet to hear the remainder. She is a much better critic than I am—reads Browning, you know—and her opinion will be worth having.”
Arthur Glynde did not demur to the change of audience, and from that day forward, whenever he made his appearance with a few quarto sheets under his arm, Lord Culvers invariably found that he had a pressing engagement, and resigned his easy-chair to Juliet.
Notwithstanding his poetic tendencies, Arthur Glynde was a very general favourite on account of his happy, genial temper. In appearance he was fair and the reverse of robust. His skin was white as a girl’s, and he had the large, dreamy, changeful grey eye of the poet. His voice in speaking was soft, low, pathetic.
He laid down his manuscript at Juliet’s behest with a little sigh. He would so much have preferred in fancy to watch a winter’s sunset “flame and die,” than to conjure up the image of the commonplace “Peggy.”
“You came off victorious, I hope?” he presently asked.
“That goes without saying,” answered Juliet. “It was all about a letter of mine. Peggy has been at
