CHAPTER XVII

PEG LEARNS OF HER UNCLE'S LEGACY

Peg looked up wonderingly from the chair.

"Me cab's at the door!" she said, warningly to Jerry.

"I am sorry to insist, but you must give me a few, moments," said the Chief Executor.

"MUST?" cried Peg.

"It is urgent," replied Jerry quietly.

"Well, then--hurry;" and Peg sat on the edge of the chair, nervously watching "Jerry."

"Have you ever wondered at the real reason you were brought here to this house and the extraordinary interest taken in you by relations who, until a month ago, had never even bothered about your existence?"

"I have, indeed," Peg answered. "But whenever I've asked any one, I've always been told it was me uncle's wish."

"And it was. Indeed, his keenest desire, just before his death, was to atone in some way for his unkindness to your mother."

"Nothin' could do that," and Peg's lips tightened.

"That was why he sent for you."

"Sendin' for me won't bring me poor mother back to life, will it?"

"At least we must respect his intentions. He desired that you should be given the advantages your mother had when she was a girl."

"'Ye've made yer bed; lie in it'! That was the message he sent me mother when she was starvin'. And why? Because she loved me father.

Well, I love me father an' if he thought his money could separate us he might just as well have let me alone. No one will ever separate us."

"In justice to yourself," proceeded Jerry, "you must know that he set aside the sum of one thousand pounds a year to be paid to the lady who would undertake your training."

Mrs. Chichester covered her eyes to hide the tears of mortification that sprang readily into them.

Alaric looked at Jerry in absolute disgust.

Hawkes frowned his disapproval.

Peg sprang up and walked across to her aunt and looked down at her.

"A thousand pounds a year!" She turned to Jerry and asked: "Does she get a thousand a year for abusin' me?"

"For taking care of you," corrected Jerry.

"Well, what do ye think of that?" cried Peg, gazing curiously at Mrs.

Chichester. "A thousand pounds a year for makin' me miserable, an' the poor dead man thinkin' he was doin' me a favour!"

"I tell you this," went on Jerry, "because I don't want you to feel that you have been living on charity. You have not."

Peg suddenly blazed up:

"Well, I've been made to feel it," and she glared pa.s.sionately at her aunt. "Why wasn't I told this before? If I'd known it I'd never have stayed with ye a minnit Who are YOU, I'd like to know, to bring me up any betther than me father? He's just as much a gentleman as any of yez. He never hurt a poor girl's feelin's just because she was poor.

Suppose he hasn't any money? Nor ME? What of it? Is it a crime? What has yer money an' yer breedin' done for you? It's dried up the very blood in yer veins, that's what it has! Yer frightened to show one real, human, kindly impulse. Ye don't know what happiness an' freedom mean. An' if that is what money does, I don't want it. Give me what I've been used to--POVERTY. At least I can laugh sometimes from me heart, an' get some pleasure out o' life without disgracin' people!"

Peg's anger gave place to just as sudden a twinge of regret as she caught sight of Ethel, white-faced, and staring at her compa.s.sionately.

She went across to Ethel and buried her face on her shoulder and wept as she wailed.

"Why WASN'T I told! I'd never have stayed! Why wasn't I told?"

And Ethel comforted her:

"Don't cry, dear," she whispered. "Don't. The day you came here we were beggars. You have literally, fed and housed us for the last month."

Peg looked up at Ethel in astonishment.

She forgot her own sorrow.

"Ye were beggars?"

"Yes. We have nothing but the provision made for your training."

Poor Mrs. Chichester looked at her daughter reproachfully.

Alaric had never seen his sister even INTERESTED much less EXCITED before. He turned to his mother, shrugged his shoulders and said:

"I give it up! That's all I can say! I simply give it up!"

Peg grasped the full meaning of Ethel's words:

"And will ye have nothin' if I go away?"

Peg paused: Ethel did not speak.

Peg persisted: "Tell me--are ye ralely dependin' on ME? Spake to me.

Because if ye are, I won't go. I'll stay with ye. I wouldn't see ye beggars for the wurrld. I've been brought up amongst them, an' I know what it is."

Suddenly she took Ethel by the shoulders and asked in a voice so low that none of the others heard her:

"Was that the reason ye were goin' last night?"

Ethel tried to stop her.

The truth illumined Ethel's face and Peg saw it and knew.

"Holy Mary!" she cried, "and it was I was drivin' ye to it. Ye felt the insult of it every time ye met me--as ye said last night. Sure, if I'd known, dear, I'd never have hurt ye, I wouldn't! Indade, I wouldn't!"