More about Pixie Part 19

Finally Pixie turned round to apostrophise Miss Viva, who was in the act of striding the back of her chair, and immediately a flash of recognition leapt from eye to eye. The French hat nodded until the feathers fairly quivered with the strain, and the face beneath became a beam of delight, in which eyes disappeared and the parted lips stretched back to a surprising distance. The fair-haired young lady had more respect to appearance in her recognition, but all the same she grew quite pink with pleasure, and cried eagerly--

"It's my dearest friend! We were at school together, but she has been in Paris finishing her education, and I have not heard from her since her return. I must speak to her in the interval--I really must! You can't think what a fascinating little creature she is when you get to know her."

"Ah, really! She looks distinctly--er--out of the common," drawled the supercilious man lazily. "Rather interesting-looking woman, the children's mother. Some relation of your friend, I suppose?"

"Oh, I suppose so! The O'Shaughnessys are a very good family. Very well connected. Beautiful old place in Ireland," drawled the young lady in her turn, and in the intervals of the performance she proceeded to expatiate on the grandeur of the O'Shaughnessy family, the beauty of Esmeralda, and the riches of her husband, until her companion looked forward with increased interest to the coming introduction.

At the first interval Pixie came forward in response to eager beckonings, and stood leaning against the side of the box talking to her friend, with superb disregard of the more extended audience.

"Fancy, now, the two of us meeting without knowing that we were here!

You look quite old, Lottie, with your hair done up. Turn your head and let me see the back! D'you still curl it with slate-pencils, like you did at school? I came home at Christmas, and I've thought of writing ever since, but I've been too busy. I suppose you're busy too, now you are grown-up and living at home. Have you come out, and gone to dances in low necks? We had an old servant at Knock, and one day a friend came to lunch and she says to Bridgie, 'That's a fine, handsome young lady!'

'She is,' says Bridgie. 'She's just come out!' 'Out of w'ere?' says Molly, staring."

Pixie darted a quick glance round the box to enjoy the general appreciation of her joke, then gave a low chuckle of satisfaction.

"Ye'll never guess what I'm doing!"

"No," said Lottie Vane complacently. She too had noticed the smiles of the audience, and was anxious to encourage her friend in her reminiscences. In society people were always grateful for being amused, and if in her recital Pixie let fall further references to the standing and importance of her family, why, so much the better for all concerned.

"What mischief are you up to now, you funny little thing?"

"I'm in service!" said Pixie proudly.

The shocked amaze of Lottie's expression, the involuntary rustle of surprise which went round the box, were as so many tributes to the thrilling nature of the intelligence, and she waited a moment to enjoy it before pointing unabashed in the direction of the two children, and condescending to further explanations.

"Me pupils! I've been with them now for over a month."

"What do you mean? How absurd you are, Pixie!" cried Lottie irritably.

"In service--you! I never heard such nonsense. As if you were a servant! I don't know what you are talking about!"

"I get wages, anyhow, and that's all I care about. They are my pupils, I tell you, and I've brought them here with their mother for a little diversion. I've the training of them every morning for a couple of hours, and thirty pounds a year paid every month. Jack and I make enough between us to support the family."

"You don't really mean it?" gasped Lottie, horrified. Her cheeks were scarlet, and it was evident that she was profoundly uncomfortable, but as she met the triumphant eyes her face softened, and she made a valiant effort to retain composure. "You mean to say you have turned into a governess at sixteen--you who were always at the bottom of the cla.s.s, and couldn't get a sum right to save your life! Poor little girls, I pity their education! How did you ever persuade the mother to take you?"

Mamzelle Paddy tossed her head with complacent pride.

"'Deed, me dear, the room was packed with them, and natives at that, and she chose me before the whole bunch. I'm not supposed to teach them anything but French, and I don't teach that except by playing games.

But I keep them from crying and quarrelling, and ye don't need to be head of your cla.s.s for that! 'Twasn't cleverness she took me for, as she told me plainly the first day I went; 'twas m'influence!"

A smothered laugh went round the box at the sound of this curious compound word, uttered in tones of complacent pride; but Lottie Vane did not laugh, and her hand stretched out involuntarily and clasped the little fingers which lay on the side of the box. Her face lost its supercilious expression, and grew sweet and womanly.

"Dear little Pixie," she said softly, "I don't pity the pupils after all. I think they are very well off. May I come over and be introduced to them and their mother? She must be a very wise woman."

The two girls walked forward together towards the spot where Mrs Wallace was sitting, and the supercilious man looked after them with thoughtful eyes. He had always admired Miss Lottie Vane, though he had privately sneered at her sn.o.bbish tendencies, but it occurred to him to- day that he had been over-hasty in judgment. How sweet she had looked as she answered her little friend, how kindly had been the tones of her voice! He felt his heart thrill with the beginning of a new and deeper interest.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

A TEA-PARTY.

Jack kept his resolve of avoiding dangerous _tete-a-tetes_ with Sylvia Trevor, and kept it in so pleasant and friendly a manner that no one suspected his motives save the person most concerned. She knew only too well that a wall of division had suddenly risen between them, but though her heart ached she carried her proud little head more erect than ever, and was so very, very lively and pleasant that Jack in his turn was deceived, and believed that she was relieved by his absence. When they met, as meet they did from time to time, they laughed and joked, and teased each other about little family jokes, and Bridgie listened delightedly, and told herself that it did Jack all the good in the world to meet Sylvia, for he was growing so much quieter, and seemed so worried over that horrid old business. Miss Munns, however, had the same complaint to make about her niece, and delivered herself of many homilies on the subject.

"Extremes," she said, "extremes, my dear, ought always to be avoided.

To be constantly running from one extreme to another shows an unbalanced character. A medium path is the wisest which one can choose, and one should show neither undue elation nor foundless depression at the events of life. I remember a proverb which we used to quote as children: 'Laugh in the morning, cry before night!'--and there is a great deal of truth in it, too. High spirits are bound to be brought low before very long."

"Well, I think it's a horrid proverb and a very wicked one into the bargain!" cried Sylvia hotly. "It sounds as if G.o.d disliked seeing one happy, and I believe He loves it and means it, and tries to teach us that it is a duty! He made the world as bright as He could for us to live in, with the sunshine and the flowers, and He made all the little animals skip and bound, and play games among themselves, so it stands to reason that He expects men and women to be happy too, especially young ones."

"Exactly! Precisely! Just what I say! I was just pointing out to you, my love, that it is over an hour since you made a remark, and that such depression of spirits was very trying to me as your companion," cried Miss Munns, with an air of triumph. "After the long period of anxiety through which I have pa.s.sed, I think I am ent.i.tled to expect some cheering society."

"But then, you see, I might cry before evening!" retorted Sylvia pertly, and had the satisfaction of feeling that she had been rude to her elders, and put herself hopelessly in the wrong, as Miss Munns took up her stocking-bag and began to darn, drooping her eyelids with an air of stony displeasure.

Sylvia glanced at her from time to time during the next half-hour, and felt ashamed of herself, and wished she were sweet-tempered like Bridgie, and thought how nice it would be if she could learn to think before she spoke, and be cautious and prudent, and never say what she was sorry for afterwards. She also wished that Aunt Margaret would not look so particularly old and frail this morning of all others. How thin she was! What great big hollows she had in her cheeks! It was rather dreadful to be old like that, and have no one to love and care for one best of all, no one but a thoughtless girl, who was never so grateful as she ought to be, and sometimes even really impertinent. The wave of penitence could not be repressed, and she jumped from her seat with her characteristic impetuosity, and threw her arms round her aunt's shoulders.

"I'm sorry I answered you back, auntie; it was horrid of me. I've been a great trouble to you this winter, but I really am awfully grateful for all your goodness. Do give me a kiss, and say you forgive me!"

"Well, well, well, my dear child, don't be so impetuous! You have nearly pulled the cap off my head. Extremes, as I said before, always extremes! Do please try to exercise some self-control. I quite understand that you are troubled about your foot, but as the doctor says it is only a question of time, and if you are patient for a month or two more, you will be able to go about as well as ever. There is no necessity to brood about it as you do, no necessity at all!"

Sylvia was not brooding about her foot, but she did not choose to say so to Miss Munns, and her silence being accepted as a sign of submission, the old lady became so mollified as to suggest that the two Miss O'Shaughnessys should be invited to tea forthwith.

Afternoon tea under Miss Munns's _regime_ was a more formal meal than is usually the case, and also a trifle more solid, for it was followed by no dinner, but a supper of cocoa and potted meat served at nine o'clock.

This arrangement was one of Sylvia's minor trials in life, but Pixie O'Shaughnessy saw great compensations in a tea where you really sat up to the table, and had jam in a pot, and a loaf, and scones, and eggs.

It fascinated her to see how the table was laid, with a white cloth spread diamond-wise under the tea-tray, and the different viands dotted about on the green baize.

Miss Munns boiled her own water, and ladled the tea out of a little silver caddy, and dipped the bottom of each cup in water before it was filled to prevent slippings on the saucer. She had a kettle-holder worked in cross-st.i.tch--red wool roses on a black wool background--and a cosy ornamented with a wreath of bead flowers. The eggs were boiled to order, hard or soft, just as you liked, in a silver pot filled with methylated spirits out of a fascinating, thimble-like measure. Pixie watched the various preparations with rapt attention, while the two elder girls chatted together at the end of the table.

"I want you to give me Whitey's address," Bridgie said, "so that I can send her some flowers. Esmeralda sent me a hamper this morning, so I am rather rich and would like to share my goad things. You said she was nursing a case in the city, so she probably has no flowers, and it's cheery to have boxes coming in as a surprise. It's so hard for nurses to live in a constant atmosphere of depression and sickness. When one is ill for a long time, as you were, one gets so bored and wearied by the monotony of the sick-room, and it's such bliss to be free again, and speak at the pitch of your voice, and be done with medicines, and pulses, and temperatures, and tiresome rules and regulations, but the nurse never gets free. Just when things are beginning to get cheerful, she goes away to another darkened room and another anxious household, and the whole programme begins over again. They love their work, of course, but it must be very hard sometimes. Don't you think so?"

"I--I--" Sylvia pursed up her lips and elevated her eyebrows in deprecatory fashion. "I never thought of it! It does sound horrid when you put it like that, but I'm afraid I just took it for granted that it was their work. Whitey never grumbled. She left that to me, and was always cheerful, though I found out afterwards that she had been awfully anxious about her sister. I wish I had thought of sending her flowers!"

"Send these--do!" cried Bridgie eagerly. "She will like them better from you, and I don't mind a bit so long as she gets them. I'll send over the box, and you shall address it and put in a little note. Yes, you must, because I felt rather mean about not bringing some for yourself, but there were not very many, and as I was going into town I couldn't resist taking some to the woman in the waiting-room."

"The woman in the-- What do you mean?"

Bridgie laughed easily.

"At London, of course. There are several waiting-rooms at our station, but I go to the dullest of all, where there is hardly a gleam of light, and one day I saw the woman staring so longingly at some flowers which a lady was carrying. Since then I have generally taken her a little bunch when I go up to town, and it is quite pathetic the way she grabs them.

She knows me now, and looks so pleased to see me!"

That was an easy thing to imagine. Sylvia pictured to herself the long, monotonous day in that dreary little room, the constant hope which reached its fulfilment when the door swung open and Bridgie's face smiled a greeting, leaving behind her the fragrant blossoms to sweeten the hours with their own perfume, and the remembrance of another's care.

Such a simple thing to do! Such an easy thing! Why had she never thought of it herself? She would have done it gladly enough if it had occurred to her mind: it was not heart that was wanted, but thought!

Oh, what a number of lives might be brightened, what an army of good deeds would be accomplished if people would only "think!"

"Well, my dear, I only hope she was a decent woman, and worthy of your kindness," said Miss Munns primly. "A lazy life, I call it. I've no opinion of people who make their living by sitting still all day. I had occasion to wait at a station some little time ago, and entered into conversation with the woman in charge. She said she was a widow, and I advised her to use my furniture-polish, for the woodwork was in a disgraceful condition, and she answered me back in a most unbecoming manner. I have done a great deal of charitable work in my day, and am on three committees at the present moment, so I am not easily taken in.

"I have been investigating cases for relief this very afternoon, and if you'll believe me in one house where they asked for help there was a musical-box upon the table! The woman said it was given to her by an old mistress, and that it amused the children while she did her work. I told her we did not undertake to relieve cases who could afford to keep musical instruments. I don't know what the poor are coming to in these days. She must dispose of it before I can have anything to do with her."

"But 'twas a present to her! It's not polite to give away presents.

Who do you want her to give it to?" queried Pixie, with the wide-eyed stare which always made Miss Munns feel so hot and discomposed. She frowned and fidgeted with the kettle, while Pixie continued to discuss the situation. "I know what it is to have children about when there's something to do. Mrs Wallace gave me a book the other day, and the schemes I made to get time to look at the pictures! I was supposed to have gone out for a walk, and they were to prepare a surprise for me when I got back. And 'twas a surprise! They'd pretended to be savages, and pulled all the feathers out of my hat to stick in their hair!"