CHAPTER X

"A SICK CAPTAIN!"

"YES, Mrs. Creak, 'tis me right enough! And how do you be? Ain't you astonished to see me? And ain't I growed? Does I look nice? I hopes as how I does, for I've put on my Sunday best to come and see you."

It was Peggy who spoke. She stood in the little sweet-shop, and it seemed to her as she saw Mrs. Creak, with her mending basket behind the counter, as if it were only yesterday she had been there.

Mrs. Creak put down her spectacles, and came out of her corner to gather her into her arms and kiss her.

"Dearie me! Who'd have thought it? I always felt you'd do well, Peggy. You were so set on service. You look quite fat and rosy. Let me have a good sight of you!"

Peggy could bear inspection. She was in a neat black coat and gown, a white tie round her throat, and a white straw hat with black ribbon on her head.

Not pretty. Our Peggy would never be that, but fresh and bright and happy, and Mrs. Creak nodded with smiling content at her.

"Now tell me how you be back in London? You must come into my back parlour, and we'll have a cup o' tea together. Mine be just ready."

She led the way into a shining little parlour, with a bright fire in the grate, and a tabby cat in full possession of the small gay-coloured hearthrug.

Peggy proceeded to give an account of herself.

"And I've been in London a week 'm," she concluded with. "And I've never seen such a 'andsome house as my missus has. I never thought I would have come to it! 'Tis full of picturs, and curtings, and chiny, and has three stairs all carpeted, and there is Lucy, the cook, and Nesbitt, the 'ousemaid, and me to help Nesbitt. She's a bit grave 'm, and don't like me talkin', and she be that partic'lar I has a hard job to please her, but Lucy be awful good-natured, and my missus is very kind. And this be my afternoon out 'm, and my missus have give me two new print gowns. She said she liked me to look nice, and Lucy's niece is a-makin of them."

"Why, you're gettin' on splendid," said cheery Mrs. Creak, when Peggy's breath gave way. "I always says that some girls go up, and some goes down, and 'tis their own doin', as a rule, which way 'tis. And how be you managin' your money, dearie?"

"Oh," said Peggy, with a wise shake of her head, "I never spends no more than I can help. I'm a-savin' of it slow and sure."

"A very good thing, Peggy; for the time will come when you may need it; sickness or old age—"

"Oh, please 'm, I shouldn't think of savin' it for myself." Peggy looked quite shocked. "Why, I never would be so greedy like. 'Tis for other—Well, there 'm, I can't tell you, but I be savin' it sure enough, and I means to. I have set my mind to it."

"And are you glad to get back to London, Peggy?"

"I is and I isn't 'm. 'Tis nice feelin' you're somebody in the country. Why, Mrs. Creak, there isn't a man or woman in our village that don't know me, and says 'Good evening' or 'Good mornin'' to me. You see we be like one big family in the country; there be so few on us to know that folks know everybody; and now in London, I be just like a fly. There be too many like me to notice one in partic'lar.

"Oh, I likes the country 'm, I does indeed, but it ain't so clean as it ought to be, and there be no water-carts nor mud-carts nor any road-scrapers along the roads, so 'tis terrible for yer boots. But when I come back to London and see'd the shops and people and hosses and carriages, I could have hugged 'em in my arms 'm, I was that pleased to see 'em agen. And how be Mrs. Jones and h'Arthur 'm? Do you see 'em?"

"Yes, I does on occasions, Peggy. You must just run in and see 'em for a minute, if you've time."

"That I will. But oh my, Mrs. Creak! Ain't I glad I went to proper service! Why, do you know, Nesbitt is gain' to learn me wait at table? I'm a-tremblin' with the thought o' it, but I means to try my very best. And if I can ketch hold of the dishes and hand them proper without breakin', shan't I be just proud of myself!"

It was a happy little visit. Peggy ran over to Mrs. Jones, and was embraced most warmly by mother and son.

When she returned to Mrs. Dale's house, she assured Nesbitt "that visitin' old friends and places were most excitin' and agreeable."

"For, Nesbitt, I looks at myself as I were a year ago, and then at myself now, and I says to myself, 'Why, Peggy, you was a dreadful common girl when you first took a place, you didn't know nothin', and you hadn't seen nothin', and now you feels as if you were full up with h'information about house cookin' and housework.' And Nesbitt, I'm awful glad I don't live in Bone Alley now!"

Peggy did not see much of her mistress. Mrs. Dale was out a good deal, and she received a great many visitors, but one day she sent for her. She was suffering from one of her headaches and lay in a darkened room.

"Peggy, I remember you telling me of hot water fomentations. I wonder if you could bring me some hot water and try it. As Nesbitt is out this afternoon, I must rely on you."

Peggy was delighted at the honour conferred upon her. She was away and back again in a very few minutes, and as she bathed her mistress's forehead, she said softly—

"I does wish I knew a certain cure for the headache. You has had yer heart cured, but the head is the trouble."

"I don't think I have had my heart cured," said Mrs. Dale, half-smiling.

Peggy looked at her gravely. "I thought you did, please 'm. I thought you wanted it made well, and that's what made me tell you."

"Yes," said Mrs. Dale, "but I haven't followed your prescription, Peggy."

Peggy looked troubled, but for once her tongue failed her.

Mrs. Dale went on—

"A patient must always believe in their doctor, Peggy, must they not? And they must be ready to take the medicine he gives them."

"In course they must, please 'm."

"And there are some people, Peggy, who find it difficult to get back the belief they once had. They would like to cure themselves if they knew how; they can't throw off their own efforts, and do nothing."

"Like the leper capting," said Peggy thoughtfully. "He was in a temper, when he was told he must just wash hisself."

"You know your Bible well."

And Mrs. Dale gave a little weary sigh.

"Please 'm, isn't your head a little better?"

"I think it is, but I can't talk any more. Do you think your Soul Doctor, Peggy, would take a patient that had spoken against Him—slandered Him, in fact—a patient that had once been to Him, and then had handed her case over to His enemy to take care of?"

Peggy's brows contracted with puzzled thought.

"He'd never send no one away, please 'm, would He? I come across a verse in the Bible, please 'm, that says, 'They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick!'"

"That will do, Peggy. Thank you. Now leave me."

And Peggy stole out of the room with a dim idea that her mistress was not yet heart-whole.

"She 've never gone and done what I telled her," was her assertion to herself.

And that night, by her bedside, she added this petition to her evening prayer, "And if you please, God, I arsks you to show my missus the way to Jesus, for she seems to have never got to Him yet!"

A few days after this, Nesbitt informed Peggy that the spare room must be got ready for a visitor.

"It's mistress's nephew, the only relation she has in the world, and he's a-coming home from India—been sent home because he is ill."

"I think I like sick folks," announced Peggy; "I feels so very much at home with 'em. You see, I've nussed an aunt who was sick all my life, so I seems to know just how to manage 'em."

"You won't be called on to have anything to do with this gentleman," said Nesbitt crushingly.

But Peggy was not easily snubbed. She continued to take an increasing interest in the coming guest, and when she was told his name was Captain D'Arcy, she was silent from sheer astonishment.

"What's the matter with you?" asked good-natured Lucy, as the three were having their supper in the kitchen together, and Nesbitt had mentioned Mrs. Dale's nephew by name.

Peggy drew a long breath, and put down her cup of cocoa that she was raising to her lips.

"I've a-dreamed and dreamed, and longed for a place," she said emphatically, "with a sick capting, and now it's come to me, I hardly knows how to take it in!"

"You've a lot of silly foolishness in your head," said Nesbitt severely, "that ought to be knocked out of it!"

"Lor, Nesbitt! Let her talk. I likes to hear 'er!" said Lucy. "Tell us why you're so taken with sick gents, Peggy."

"Well," said Peggy earnestly, "'tis like this. I heard tell of a servant-maid in the Bible, and I took a strordinary liking to her. It didn't say much about her looks, or what kind o' home she had, but 'twas what she did. And I've always said to myself, that if I ever found myself in a place like hers, I'd try and see if I couldn't do somethink like her. And—" here Peggy hushed her voice to a solemn whisper, "she were waitin' on a lady, and there were a sick capting in the house!"

"Well, what o' that?" said Lucy, laughing.

Nesbitt looked at her in stern disapproval, but the bell rang, and she had to go to her mistress.

Peggy hardly noticed her departure.

"The sick capting had a illness that couldn't be cured," she continued, in solemn tones, "and the servant-maid got him well by tellin' him who to go to. She sent him to some one who cured him."

"I believe I have heard the story," said Lucy indifferently. "Wasn't he a leper, and didn't he go to Elisha?"

"Yes," said Peggy, "but 'twas the girl who sent him."

"I don't see much sense in that story," said Lucy, with a yawn. "You reads yourself silly over your Bible, Peggy."

Peggy said no more.

She watched Captain D'Arcy arrive the next day with the greatest interest. He was helped out of a cab by a soldier servant, and seemed to be in very feeble health. His servant, Tom Bennett by name, proved a welcome addition to the household. He was a bright cheery man, devoted to his young master, and full of tales about his courage and endurance in foreign parts. He told a wonderful story of the capture of a tiger, and the three maidservants listened with breathless interest to this and other adventures.

Peggy was full of curiosity, and her many questions amused Tom Bennett greatly.

"Please, sir," she said, "have you ever seen a heathen or a missionary?"

"I believe I has," was the smiling reply. "Why, bless your heart, every blacky is a heathen, and they be as plentiful as flies where we've come from."

"And what does they talk? Is it English?"

"They talks gibberish; Hindustani mostly, but there be several mixed-up langwidges which be past me altogether."

Peggy's face fell. "And you've seen a missionary?"

"Yes. Is he a natural curiosity, do you think? They ain't much in my line, missionaries ain't, nor yet in the captin's, so we didn't introduce ourselves. They be just a set o' parsons, and has churches and schools same as in England."

"But," said Peggy hesitatingly, "there be some women and girl missionaries out in Indy, I knows there be."

"You're quite right; I've seen a few. But they keeps theirselves to their schools and such-like. They ain't in the captin's set, nor in mine."

He laughed as he spoke.

Peggy, for a wonder, subsided, but she thought the more. And then one day she saw Captain D'Arcy himself.

Nesbitt was out for the afternoon, and Peggy took tea into the library. Mrs. Dale had been called away on business, and her nephew lay on a couch by the fire, covered with a fur rug. Peggy regarded him with reverence and awe; but not all her training by her former mistresses, nor by Nesbitt, had cured her of beginning conversations with any and every one that she saw.

"Please, sir, I hopes you're feelin' better," she said, as she carefully put down the tea-tray.

Captain D'Arcy turned a surprised and languid look upon her, then a twinkle came into his eyes.

"I'm getting on first-rate, thanks," he said.

"If I can do anythink, sir, to make you better, I would," persisted Peggy, regarding him with anxious, earnest eyes.

"I'm afraid you can't," was the amused rejoinder, "unless you can give me a new inside. India ruins a man's digestion, and plays the dickens with him generally!"

Peggy's blue eyes fairly sparkled with delight.

"Oh, please sir, I knows who will make you new inside. I knows the very One. Please, sir, may I tell you?"

Without waiting for a reply, she went on—

"'Tis the Lord Jesus, sir. He says He'll give us new hearts if we ask of Him. If you go to Him, please sir, He'll make your heart quite well. He will, indeed, for I knows heaps o' people that have had their hearts put right, and I has myself, sir, for I give it into His hands, and He done it. Please, sir, you'll excuse my mentionin' it, but I should like you to get well, and it do seem as if you've got the right illness to be cured. 'Tis just the inside on us that the Lord can cure. For the Bible says, 'A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.'"

She paused for breath, and Captain D'Arcy was so taken aback, that he remained quite silent.

Peggy had said her say and withdrew, excited and trembling at her audacity.

"You've done it, Peggy. You've tolded him where to go, and 'tis his sick heart that be makin' his body bad—he telled me so. Oh, I does hope he'll go and be cured—I does, indeed!"

But not a word did she say of her interview to the servants in the kitchen. She kept her own counsel. She had had her opportunity and she used it.

"I'm as good as the girl in the Bible, now," she said to herself, with a happy sigh. "She telled a sick capting who would cure him, and I've done it too. I can't do no more. I wonder if he'll go."

"Aunt Alice," said Captain D'Arcy that afternoon. "You have an extraordinary specimen of a maid in your household."

"You must mean Peggy," said Mrs. Dale smiling. "I daresay she does look queer, but she is a rough diamond, Harry. She is a true, faithful little soul, who puts her heart into her work. She is not my servant really, but I am taking her to oblige some friends whilst they are away. Do you remember a Mr. Churchhill, a clergyman in the East End? I used to work with him many years ago."

"I remember two little girls, when I was a very small boy, coming to tea with you once. Joy, or Joyce, one of them was called. She and I vowed perpetual friendship, or something of the sort. Where are they now?"

"The father died quite recently, and they are left very badly off, I am afraid. They took a small cottage in the country, and had Peggy as their maid. I was lodging in a farmhouse near them this summer, so renewed my acquaintance with them. They are at Bournemouth now, for Helen Churchhill has been ill and wanted a change of air. They shut up their cottage, and I promised to take charge of Peggy meanwhile."

"Is she by way of being a saint or a simpleton?" asked Captain D'Arcy languidly.

His aunt looked sharply at him.

"Has she been talking to you? Her tongue cannot be restrained, but she means no harm."

Captain D'Arcy gave a short laugh.

"She stood up there by her tea-tray, and preached at me. One of the shortest straightest sermons that I had ever heard, but the suddenness with which she plunged into her subject was rather startling!"

Mrs. Dale looked grave.

"I am sorry if she annoyed you, Harry; I must say her zeal outruns her discretion sometimes. But her motive is good, and she has been the means of bringing me into touch with things that for a long time I pushed into the background."

It cost Mrs. Dale some considerable effort to say those few words.

Her nephew whistled softly.

"She is an original," he said. "Don't forbid her to speak, Aunt. I shall be interested in seeing how she will follow it up."

"I don't think you will find she refers to it again. As far as I gather, Peggy gives her message and leaves it. She won't trouble you any more."