CHAPTER VIII.
ONE PARTICULAR EVENING.
"O world, as God has made it! All is beauty,
And knowing this is love, and love is duty."
IT was Peter who first noticed Meg's face one particular evening. He and Poppet were doing, or making a pretence of doing, preparation for the next day, and Nellie was reading a novel in the only armchair the nursery held.
Meg came in at nine o'clock—nearly an hour past the usual time to send the little ones to bed. "Thust look at Meg'th fathe!" Peter said, and rounded his eyes at her. Of course every one looked instantly.
It was like a blush rose. A delicate, exquisite flush had crept over it, her eyes were soft and dewy, her lips unsteady.
"Peter dear, come to bed; now, Poppet," she said; and even in her voice there was a new note.
Nellie laid down her book and looked at her sister in surprise. She had only just discovered she was beautiful. Hitherto it had seemed to be tacitly allowed that she herself had monopolised the good looks of the family; so to discover this sudden beauty in Meg rather amazed her.
She looked to see if it had anything to do with her dress; no, she had worn it scores of times before. It was a muslin, pale blue, rather old-fashioned in make, for the body fitted plainly with the exception of a slight gathering at the neck. The skirt was very long, and ended in a crossway frill at the hem,—how graceful it made her look! In her waistband she had stuck some cornflowers vividly blue.
And her hair! Nellie devoted a surprisingly long time daily to the erection of an elaborate coiffeur on her own beautiful head; but surely Meg's had a grace of its own, from its very simplicity. It was drawn back loosely that it might wave and curl as it pleased, and then was twisted into a shining knot halfway down her head.
And that exquisite pink in her cheeks!
"Oh, Meg!" Nellie said, half guessing, half shy.
"Dear Peter—oh, Poppet, do come!" Meg entreated. The pink had deepened, her eyes had grown distressful. Both children rose and followed her without a word; they had the native delicacy that every unspoiled child possesses.
But Nellie had lost interest in her book,—what was a fictitious tale of love, when she might hear of one in real life within these very walls?
She went downstairs and into the drawing-room. "Who's in the study, Esther? I can hear voices," she said sharply.
Esther was reading, lying on the sofa, her dark, beautiful head against the yellow, frilled cushions. She turned a leaf before she replied.
"Oh, only father and Alan Courtney," she said, with a studiously matter-of-fact air.
"I thought so!" Nell exclaimed, with a deep breath; then she sat down at the foot of the sofa and looked at Esther.
"Well?" Esther said, feeling the gaze before she reached the end of the next page; then she smiled.
"Is he really asking father?" Nell asked breathlessly.
"I'm not at the keyhole," Esther replied.
"And I wish I was," Nell said with fervour.
Then they looked at each other again, and again Esther smiled. "How pretty she looked to-night!" she said meditatively.
"Very, very," Nell answered eagerly; "why, I couldn't help staring at her."
"I'm very fond of Alan myself; he's a thoroughly good fellow. I think they are excellently suited," the young stepmother said.
Nellie was silent a minute. "I wish he looked older," she said; "thirty is the proper age for a man, I think. And I'd rather he had a long, fair moustache; his eyes are not bad; but I wish he wouldn't rumple his hair up straight when he gets excited."
Esther smiled indulgently at Nellie's idea of a hero.
"As long as he makes her happy," she said, "I'll forgive him for being clean-shaved. Why are you looking at me like that, Nell?"
"I was thinking how very pretty you are yet, Esther," was the girl's answer, spoken thoughtfully. Esther's beauty did strike her on occasion, and to-night, with the dark, bright face and rich, crinkly hair in relief against the cushions, it was especially noticeable.
"Yet," repeated Esther, "I'm not very old, Nell, am I? Twenty-five is not very old." Her eyes looked wistfully at the very young lovely face of her second step-daughter.
"Oh no, dear—oh no, Esther," said Nell, quick to notice the wistfulness; "why, of course it is very young; only—oh, Essie!"
"What?" said Esther in surprise.
"How could you marry father?" She crept up closer, and put her shining head down beside the dark one. "Of course I don't want to hurt your feelings, but really he is so very middle-aged and ordinary; were you really in love, Essie?"
But Esther was spared the embarrassing answer by the entrance of the Captain and Alan.
You all saw Alan last five years ago, when he used to go on the river boat every morning to his lectures at the university. His face is even more earnest and grave than before; life is a serious business to this young doctor, and the only relaxations he allows himself are football and Meg.
His eyes are grey, deeply set; his patients and Meg think them beautiful. His dark hair has a wave in it, and is on end, for of course he has been somewhat excited.
The Captain does not look unamiable.
Alan has only just begun to practise, certainly; but then he has three hundred a year of his own, and his prospects are spoken of as brilliant. Still, he has the air of having grudgingly conferred a favour, and he goes out to smoke his cigar and think it over.
"All well?" ask Esther's arched eyebrows. And "All is well" Alan answers with a grave, pleasant smile.
"Dear boy, I am so glad," she says. There is a moisture in her dark eyes as she gives him her hand, for Meg is very dear to her.
[Illustration: "HE BENDS HIS TALL, BOYISH-LOOKING HEAD SUDDENLY, AND KISSES THE HAND HE HOLDS."]
He looks at her in silence for a minute; then he bends his tall, boyish-looking head suddenly, and kisses the hand he holds.
"I am glad too," Nellie whispers, with something like a sob in her throat; she too holds out her hand.
"Dear little Nell!" he says; and such a happy light is in the eyes that look down at her that she quite forgives his lack of good looks. "Dear little Nell!"
He does not kiss her hand—it is too little and childish, he considers; but he stoops and takes a first brotherly kiss from the soft cheek nearest to him, and though she blushes a little, she is impressed with the dignity that attaches to a future brother-in-law.
Then he goes. Meg has refused to be visible again to-night to him, and Nellie flies up the staircase.
"Dear Meg," she pleads at the door—it is locked, and doesn't open for a minute.
But the tone turns the key, and the sisters are in each other's arms.
Just the room you might expect Meg to have. It is fresh, simple, and daintily pretty. The floor is covered with white China matting; the bed hangings have loose pink roses on a white ground; the pillows have hem-stitched frills. There is a bookcase on one wall, in which the poets preponderate; the dressing-table is strewn with the pretty odds and ends girls delight in; there is a writing-table that looks as if it is used often; and in the window stands a deep wicker chair with rose-pink cushions double frilled.
On the walls there are some water-colours of Meg's own, pretty in colouring, but shaky as to perspective. Two lines she has illuminated herself,—
"Lord, help us this and every day
To live more nearly as we pray."
The gold letters are a little uneven, perhaps; but she wears them in her heart besides, so it does not matter. There is an engraving in an oak and gold frame—"Songs of Love"; Meg loves the exquisite face of the singer, and the back of the sweet little child. There is a long photo-frame with a balcony rail: here is Essie all dimpled with her sauciest smile; Poppet and Peter's heads close together like two little bright-eyed birds; Nell, a little self-conscious with the camera so close; Esther looking absurdly girlish; Pip in his cap and gown when they were delightfully new. Bunty always refused to put on an engaging smile and submit himself to the photographer, so he is not represented.
And over the mantelpiece, in an ivory frame, is an old, fading likeness of a little thin girl with a bright face and mischievous eyes, and rough, curly hair—Judy at ten.
It had taken all the time you have been looking at the room for the girls to kiss each other and say little half-laughing, half-crying words. Then Nellie forced Meg into the wicker chair, and knelt down herself, with her arms round her sister's waist.
"You darling," she said. "Oh, Meg, how glad I am! Dear, dear Meg, I do hope you'll be happy—impossibly happy."
It was the first connected sentence either of them had spoken.
"I couldn't be happier," was Meg's whisper.
"But always, always, dear—even when your hair is white, and there are wrinkles here and here and here." She touched the smooth cheeks and brow with tender fingers.
There was a little silence fraught with love, the two bright heads leaning together; then Meg spoke, shyly, hesitatingly:
"Alan—Nell dear—you do—like him?"
"Oh, he's well enough—oh yes, I'm very fond of Alan," said Nell. "Of course I don't consider him half good enough, though, for you."
"Oh, Nellie!" Meg looked quite distressed. "Why, it is the other way, of course. He is so clever—oh! you don't know how clever; and I am such a stupid thing."
"Very stupid," assented Nellie; but her smile differed.
"And he is always thinking of plans to do good to the lower classes. Nell, you cannot think how miserable some of them are; though they don't half realise it, they get so dulled and weary. Oh, Nellie dear, I do think he is the very best man in the world." The young, sweet face was half hidden behind the deep cushion frill.
"Well, you are the very best woman," Nell said very tenderly, and meant it indeed.
Pretty giddy little butterfly, that she was just now, she often paused in her flights to wish she could grow just as sweet and good and true and unselfish as Meg without any trouble.
"The very best woman," she repeated; but Meg's soft hand closed her lips and stayed there.
"If you knew how I'm always failing," she said, with a deep sigh.
"But the trying is everything," Nell said.
Then there were more tender words and wishes, and Nellie went to bed, stealing on tip-toe down the passage, for time had flown on noiseless wings and the household was asleep. And Meg took down the ivory frame, and put her lips to the laughing child-face.
"Oh, Judy," she said, "I wish you knew. Dear little Judy, I wonder if you know?"