More About Peggy
Vaizey Mrs. George de Horne
English
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Below is a summary of More About Peggy
More About Peggy, by Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
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This is another excellent book by Mrs de Horne Vaizey,
dating from the end of the nineteenth century. While of
course it is dated in its references to the world around
its actors, yet nevertheless their emotions are
well-described, and no doubt are timeless.
In some ways the world around the people in the book is
recognisable today, in a way which a book written thirty or
forty years before would not have been. They have
electricity, telephones, trains, buses, and many other
things that we still use regularly today. Of course one
major difference is that few people today have servants,
while middle-class and upper-class families of the eighteen
nineties would certainly have had them.
Today we travel by aeroplane, while in those days, and
indeed for much of my own life, we travelled by ship and
train. It was normal when travelling back to England from
India to disembark at Marseilles, and come on to the
Channel Ports by train, perhaps even spending a week or two
in Italy, en route. I have done it myself.
So it is not so very dated after all. But I do think there
is a real value in reading the book. Oddly enough, I think
that a boy would benefit from reading any of the
author's books, more than a girl would, because it would
give him an insight into the girlish mind which he could
not so easily otherwise obtain. And as the young ladies of
this book are trying to sort out whom they should marry,
matters do get quite girlish. N.H.
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MORE ABOUT PEGGY
BY MRS. GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY
CHAPTER ONE.
It was mid-January, and at home in England the ground was white with
snow, but the sun shone down with brazen glare on the blue waters of the
Bay of Bengal, along which a P and O steamer was gliding on its homeward
way. An awning was hoisted over the deck, but not a breath of wind
fluttered its borders, and the passengers lay back in their deck-chairs
too limp and idle to do more than flick over the pages of the books
which they were pretending to read. It was only twenty-four hours since
they had left Calcutta, and they were still in that early stage of
journeying when they looked askance at their fellows, decided that
never, no, never had Fate placed them in the midst of such uninteresting
companions, and determined to keep severely to themselves during the
rest of the voyage.
The stout lady in the white _pique_ stared stonily at the thin lady in
drill, and decided that she was an "Impossible Person," blissfully
unconscious of the fact that before Aden was reached she would pour all
her inmost secrets into the "Impossible Person's" ear, and weep salt
tears at parting from her at Marseilles. The mother of the sickly
little girls in muslin swept them away to the other end of the deck when
she discovered them playing with the children who inhabited the next
state-room, and the men stared at one another stolidly across the
smoking-room. The more experienced travellers knew that ere a week had
passed the scene would be changed, that a laughing babel of voices would
succeed the silence, and deck sports and other entertainments take the
place of inaction; but the younger members of the party saw no such
alleviation ahead, and resigned themselves to a month of frosty
solitude.
The ladies dozed amongst their cushions, but the men strolled up and
down the deck smoking their cigars with that air of resigned dejection
which seems to be the monopoly of Englishmen of the upper classes. The
quick movements, animated gestures, and sparkling eyes of the Southerner
were all lacking in these strongly built, well-dressed, well-set-up men,
who managed to conceal all signs of animation so successfully that no
one looking at them could have believed that one was the wit of his
regiment, another celebrated throughout an Indian province for his
courage and daring, and a third an expectant bridegroom!
About eleven o'clock a diversion was made on the upper deck by the
appearance of two more travellers--an elegant-looking woman accompanied
by her husband, who came forward in search of the deck-chairs which had
been placed in readiness for their use. They were not a young couple by
any means, yet the eyes of the passengers followed their movements with
interest, for they were not only exceedingly good to look upon, but had
an air of enjoyment in their surroundings and in each other's society
which is unfortunately not universal among middle-aged couples. The man
was tall and slight, with the weather-beaten, dried-up skin which tells
of a long residence under burning suns, and he had a long nose, and eyes
which appeared almost startlingly blue against the brown of his skin.
They were curious eyes, with a kind of latent fierceness in their good
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