Peregrine's Progress

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCING MYSELF

"Nineteen to-day, is he!" said my uncle Jervas, viewing me languidly through his quizzing-glass. "How confoundedly the years flit! Nineteen—and on me soul, our poor youth looks as if he hadn't a single gentlemanly vice to bless himself with!"

"Not one, Jervas, my boy," quoth my uncle George, shaking his comely head at me. "Not one, begad, and that's the dooce of it! It seems he don't swear, he don't drink, he don't gamble, he don't make love, he don't even—"

"Don't, George," exclaimed my aunt Julia in her sternest tone, her handsome face flushed, her stately back very rigid.

"Don't what, Julia?"

"Fill our nephew's mind with your own base masculine ideas—I forbid."

"But damme—no, Julia, no—I mean, bless us! What's to become of a man—what's a man to do who don't—"

"Cease, George!"

"But he's almost a man, ain't he?"

"Certainly not; Peregrine is—my nephew—"

"And ours, Julia. We are his legal guardians besides—"

"And set him in my care until he comes of age!" retorted my aunt defiantly.

"And there, happy youth, is his misfortune!" sighed my uncle Jervas.

"Misfortune?" echoed my aunt in whisper so awful that I, for one, nearly trembled. "Misfortune!" she repeated. "Hush! Silence! Not a word! I must think this over! Misfortune!"

In the dreadful pause ensuing, I glanced half-furtively from one to other of my three guardians; at my uncle Jervas, lounging gracefully in his chair, an exquisite work of art from glossy curls to polished Hessians; at my uncle George, standing broad back to the mantel, a graceful, stalwart figure in tight-fitting riding-coat, buckskins and spurred boots; at my wonderful aunt, her dark and statuesque beauty as she sat, her noble form posed like an offended Juno, dimpled chin on dimpled fist, dark brows bent above long-lashed eyes, ruddy lips close-set and arched foot tapping softly beneath the folds of her ample robe.

"His misfortune!" she repeated for the fourth time, softly and as to herself. "And ever have I striven to be to him the tender mother he never knew, to stand in place of the father he never saw!"

"I'm sure of it, Julia!" said my uncle George, fidgeting with his stock.

"His misfortune! And I have watched over him with care unfailing—"

"Er—of course, yes—not a doubt of it, Julia," said uncle George, fiddling with a coat button.

"His upbringing has been the passion of my life—"

"I'm sure of it, Julia, your sweet and—er—womanly nature—"

"George, have the goodness not to interrupt!" sighed my aunt, with a little gesture of her hand. "I have furthermore kept him segregated from all that could in any way vitiate or vulgarise; he has had the ablest tutors and been my constant companion, and to-day—I am told—all this is but his misfortune. Now and therefore. Sir Jervas Vereker, pray explain yourself."

"Briefly and with joy, m'dear Julia," answered my uncle Jervas, smiling sleepily into my aunt's fierce black eyes. "I simply mean that your meticulous care of our nephew has turned what should have been an ordinary and humanly promising, raucous and impish hobbledehoy into a very precise, something superior, charmingly prim and modest, ladylike young fellow—"

"Ladyli—!" My stately aunt came as near gasping as was possible in such a woman, then her stately form grew more rigidly statuesque, her mouth and chin took on that indomitable look I knew so well, and she swept the speaker with the blasting fire of her fine black eyes....