Chapter 2 - Page 2

Meagles who had spoken to Mr Meagles; and Mrs Meagles
was, like Mr Meagles, comely and healthy, with a pleasant English
face which had been looking at homely things for five-and-fifty
years or more, and shone with a bright reflection of them.

'There! Never mind, Father, never mind!' said Mrs Meagles. 'For
goodness sake content yourself with Pet.'

'With Pet?' repeated Mr Meagles in his injured vein. Pet, however,
being close behind him, touched him on the shoulder, and Mr Meagles
immediately forgave Marseilles from the bottom of his heart.

Pet was about twenty. A fair girl with rich brown hair hanging
free in natural ringlets. A lovely girl, with a frank face, and
wonderful eyes; so large, so soft, so bright, set to such
perfection in her kind good head. She was round and fresh and
dimpled and spoilt, and there was in Pet an air of timidity and
dependence which was the best weakness in the world, and gave her
the only crowning charm a girl so pretty and pleasant could have
been without.

'Now, I ask you,' said Mr Meagles in the blandest confidence,
falling back a step himself, and handing his daughter a step
forward to illustrate his question: 'I ask you simply, as between
man and man, you know, DID you ever hear of such damned nonsense as
putting Pet in quarantine?'

'It has had the result of making even quarantine enjoyable.'
'Come!' said Mr Meagles, 'that's something to be sure. I am
obliged to you for that remark. Now, Pet, my darling, you had
better go along with Mother and get ready for the boat. The
officer of health, and a variety of humbugs in cocked hats, are
coming off to let us out of this at last: and all we jail-birds are
to breakfast together in something approaching to a Christian style
again, before we take wing for our different destinations.
Tattycoram, stick you close to your young mistress.'

He spoke to a handsome girl with lustrous dark hair and eyes, and
very neatly dressed, who replied with a half curtsey as she passed
off in the train of Mrs Meagles and Pet. They crossed the bare
scorched terrace all three together, and disappeared through a
staring white archway. Mr Meagles's companion, a grave dark man of
forty, still stood looking towards this archway after they were
gone; until Mr Meagles tapped him on the arm.

'I beg your pardon,' said he, starting.

'Not at all,' said Mr Meagles.

They took one silent turn backward and forward in the shade of the
wall, getting, at the height on which the quarantine barracks are
placed, what cool refreshment of sea breeze there was at seven in
the morning. Mr Meagles's companion resumed the conversation.

'May I ask you,' he said, 'what is the name of--'

'Tattycoram?'