More about Pixie Part 3

One day there was a picture of the old home--such a venerable and imposing building that Aunt Margaret, beholding it, felt her last suspicions of counterfeit coining die a natural death, and gave instructions to Mary that the second-best tea-things were to be taken upstairs whenever Miss O'Shaughnessy was present. Sylvia was impressed too, but thought it very sad that anyone who had lived in a castle should come down to Number Three, Rutland Road. She delicately hinted as much, and Bridgie said--

"Yes, it would be hard if we took it seriously, but we don't. It's just like being in seaside lodgings, when the smallnesses and inconveniences make part of the fun. We are going home some day, when Jack has made his fortune, and until then my brother-in-law rents the Castle from us, and we go over and stay with him once or twice in the year. Esmeralda is mistress of Knock, and is having it put in such terrible order that we can hardly recognise the dear old tumbledown place. There is not a single broken pane in the gla.s.s-houses!" Bridgie spoke in a tone of almost incredulous admiration, the while she drew a large promenade photograph from its envelope. "There, that's Esmeralda! Taken in the dress in which she was presented."

Sylvia looked, and gasped with surprise. Such a vision of beauty and elegance, such billows of satin, such lace, such jewels and nodding plumes, were seldom seen in this modest suburban neighbourhood. She had never before had any connection with a girl who had been presented at Court, and the face which looked out of the photograph was as young as her own--startlingly, dazzlingly young.

"Your sister? Really! How per-fectly lovely and beautiful! Is she really as pretty as that? How old is she? What is her husband like?

Is she very happy? She must be very rich to have all those beautiful things."

"She has more money than she can spend. Can you imagine that? I can't!" said Bridgie solemnly. "I asked Esmeralda what it felt like to be able to get whatever she liked without asking the price, and she said it was very soothing to the feelings, but not nearly so exciting as when she used to make up new hats out of nothing at all and a piece of dyed ribbon. She is only twenty--younger than I, and as beautiful as a picture. Geoffrey adores her. She has a dear little baby boy to play with, and wherever she goes people turn round to look after her, so that she walks about from morning till night in a kind of triumphal procession."

"How nice!" sighed Sylvia enviously. "Just what I should like. No one turns round to look after me, and I feel a worm every time I walk down Bond Street among all the horrible creatures who look nicer than I do myself. People say--sensible old people, I mean--that it is bad for the character to have everything that one wants. Do you think it is so in your sister's case? Is she spoiled by prosperity?"

Esmeralda's sister hesitated, loyally unwilling to breathe a word against a member of her family.

"She is just as loving and generous as she can be; thinks of every single thing that father would have liked, and makes a perfect mistress of the old place. The people adore her, and are in wholesome awe of her, too--far more so than they ever were of me. The boys get cross sometimes because she expects us to do exactly what she wishes, and that immediately, if not sooner, but it doesn't worry me. I agree with all she says, and then quietly go my own way, and the next time we meet she has forgotten all about it. She is just the least in the world inclined to be overbearing, but we all have our faults, and can't afford to judge each other. She has been a dear sweet sister to me!"

Bridgie smoothed the tissue paper carefully over the portrait and put it back in its envelope. Then she picked up a smaller photograph from the table, and her face glowed with tenderness and pride. "Now!" she cried, and her voice was as a herald's trumpet announcing the advent of the princ.i.p.al character upon the stage. "Now, here she comes! Here's Pixie! Here's our Baby!"

Sylvia sat up eagerly and held the photograph up to the light. She looked at it, and blinked her eyes to be sure she had seen aright. She cast a swift look at Bridgie's face to a.s.sure herself that she was not the victim of a practical joke. She pressed her lips together to repress an exclamation of dismay. She had expected to behold a vision of loveliness--the superlative in the scale in which the two elder sisters made positive and comparative, but what she saw was an elf-like figure sitting huddled in the depths of an arm-chair, with tiny hands clasped together, and large dilapidated boots occupying the place of honour in the foreground. Lank tails of hair fell to the shoulders, and while the nose was of the smallest possible dimensions, the mouth seemed to stretch right across the face. It seemed impossible that this comical little creature could belong to such a handsome and distinguished-looking family, still more so that her belongings should be proud of her rather than ashamed, yet there sat Bridgie all beams and expectancy, her sweet lips a-tremble with tenderness.

"That's little Pixie! Esmeralda gave her two shillings for unpicking some old dresses, and she went into the village and got photographed for my birthday present. There was a travelling photographer down for a week, and it's wonderfully like her for eighteenpence. The other sixpence she spent on a frame--green plush, with sh.e.l.ls at the corners.

Esmeralda had remarks to make when I put it on the drawing-room mantelpiece, and offered to give me a silver one instead." Bridgie smiled and shook her head with an expression which showed that the price of the green plush frame was above rubies. "No, indeed! It's not likely I will give up Pixie's present."

"She is not very like any of you!" Sylvia said lamely. She wanted to be pleasant and appreciative, but could not think what on earth to say next. "It must be--er--very nice to have a little sister. She is in Paris, you say. Will she be away long?"

"She is coming home for good in January. Geoffrey and Esmeralda are going over to bring her back, and she will go on with finishing lessons at home. We can't do without each other any longer. I feel quite sore with wanting her sometimes, and she is home-sick too. I had a letter from her this morning. Would you like me to read it to you to show you what she is like?"

"Please do!" said Sylvia politely, but in reality she was rather bored by the prospect.

It was one of Aunt Margaret's peculiarities that she insisted upon reading aloud the letters which she received from old-lady friends, and the incredible dulness of the epistles made them a trial to the patience of her lively young niece. She stifled a yawn as Bridgie straightened the sheets of foreign note-paper, and cleared her throat with prospective enjoyment.

"'Dearest, Darling People, especially Bridgie,--I was gladder than ever to get your letters this week, because it's been raining and dull, and the mud looked so home-like that it depressed my spirits.

Therese has gone out for the day, so Pere and I are alone. He wears white socks and a velvet jacket, and sleeps all the time. He told me one day that he used to be very active when he was young, and that was why he liked to rest now. "All the week I do nozzing, and on Sundays I repose me!" I teach him English, but he doesn't like to talk it much, because it's so difficult to be clever in a foreign language.

"'My dear, I never suffered more than when I first came here, and Therese telling everyone how amusing I was, and myself sitting as dumb as a mummy! I can talk quite beautifully now, and wriggle about like a native. I'll teach you how to shrug your shoulders, and you hold up your dress quite differently in France, and it's fashionable to be fat. Last night Therese let me have two girls for _souper_. They are called Marie and Julie, and wear plaid dresses, and combs in their hair. I like them frightfully, but they are very rude sometimes, saying France is better than England, and that we have big teeth and ugly boots. Then they got angry because I laughed, and said England always thought she was right, but that everyone else knew she was a cheat and a bully, and that she was the most disliked nation on earth!

"And you are the politest," says I, quite composed, and at that they got red in the face, for I was all alone, and there were two of them in their own country.

"'When they went away they kissed me, and said they were sorry, and that my teeth weren't big a bit, and I said France was an elegant country, but you couldn't wear high heels in Ireland, or you'd never be free of the bog. It's a pity French people don't like us, and I don't think they always mean exactly what they say, but they make beautiful things to eat.

"'Therese gives me cooking lessons out of school hours, and I've lost my taste for coffee with grounds in it, like we had at Knock.

Everything is as clean as if it were quite new, and there is such a different smell in the houses--a lonely smell! It makes me long for home and you, and a peat fire, and all the people in the streets speaking English, and never as much as thinking of the tenses of verbs.

"'You are quite sure I may come home in January, aren't you, Bridgie?

You are not saying it just to pacify me? I'll tell you a secret!

Once I thought of running away and coming back to you in London, because I couldn't bear myself any longer. I said to Therese, just in a careless kind of way, as if I had only thought of it that moment: "Supposing now that a young girl was in Paris, and wanting to run away to her friends in England, how would she set about getting there?"

"'And she never suspected a bit, for she said:--

"'"Supposing that she lived in this suburb, it would be quite easy to manage. She should rest tranquil until the family were in bed, and no one in the streets but thieves and robbers, and then slip out of the house and walk to the station. There would be no _voiture_, but perhaps the thieves may not see her, and all of them do not care about kidnapping children. When she reaches the station, she will take her ticket for England--it costs but a few sovereigns--and she has only to change twice, and get through the custom-house. If all went well, she would be in London next morning, while the poor friends in Paris might cry as much as they liked--they could not bring her back."

"'She seemed to think it quite easy, but I was afraid of the thieves, and had only three francs in my purse; and that afternoon they were both awfully kind to me, and Pere called me _cherie_, and Therese took me to the circus. The clown is called August, but the princ.i.p.al one is English, because they are the best. He made English jokes, and I laughed as loudly as I could, to show that I understood. The other people smiled with their lips, don't you know--the way people do when they don't understand, but think it is grand to pretend. I feel so stylish being English in France. When I come home to London, I'll be French!

"'Esmeralda sent me a book and some money for Christmas presents.

Tell Jack to write me a funny letter with ill.u.s.trations. How is the poor girl with the bark on the road? We haven't a single animal in the house, not even a cat. I miss them frightfully. Do you remember when my ferret died, and I filled up to cry, and the Major bought me a white rat for consolation? Health, and tons of love, darling, from your own Pixie.'"

Sylvia chuckled softly from the bed.

"It's not a sc.r.a.p like a letter," she said. "It is just like somebody talking. What a jolly little soul! She seems very young, doesn't she?

Some girls of sixteen are quite young ladies."

"Pixie will always be a child," said Pixie's sister fondly. "There is something simple and trustful about her which will keep her young all her life. She is so transparently honest, that it never occurs to her that anyone else can be different; and she is the kindest, most loving little creature that was ever created. Don't you think she looks a darling in the photograph?"

It had come at last, the dreaded question, and Sylvia tried her best to combine truthfulness with politeness.

"She has very sweet eyes. It is difficult to judge when you have never seen a person. She--she isn't exactly pretty, is she?"

"_Pretty_--Pixie pretty! I should think not, indeed!" cried Bridgie, with a heat of denial which seemed singularly out of keeping with the occasion. From the manner of her reply it was evident that she considered Pixie's plainness a hundred times more _distingue_ than Esmeralda's beauty. "She's the quaintest-looking little creature that ever you set eyes on, with the dearest, funniest face! Father used to call her the ugliest child in Galway. He was so proud of her, bless him!"

Bridgie sighed pensively, and Sylvia stared at her with curious eyes.

So far she had made the acquaintance of but one member of the O'Shaughnessy family, but it seemed as though they took the various trials and vicissitudes of life in a very different spirit from the people with whom she herself had a.s.sociated. Instead of moaning over the inevitable, they discerned the humour of the situation, and in happy fashion turned the trial into a joke.

"I wonder," sighed Sylvia to herself, "I wonder where the joke comes in in losing your hair. I suppose she would say it was so cool to be bald!" Not even to herself would she put into words the deeper, crueller dread which lay hauntingly in the background of her mind!

CHAPTER FOUR.

DREAD.

The foot refused to heal, and one morning a well-known surgeon followed Dr Horton into the sick-room. The very sound of his name was as a death-knell to the girl in the bed, but she controlled herself by a mighty effort, and strained every nerve to watch the faces of her attendants during the examination which followed. She knew that they would keep up appearances in her presence, and so long as possible hide the worst from her knowledge; but if she appeared unsuspicious they would perhaps be less careful, and a stray word, an interchange of glances, might show the direction of their thoughts. She lay perfectly still, not even flinching with pain when the diseased bone was touched, for the tension of mind was so great as to eclipse bodily suffering; but the cool, business-like manner of the great surgeon gave no hint of his decision, while Dr Horton was as cheerful, Whitey as serenely composed, as on ordinary occasions.

The cage was replaced over the foot, the bedclothes put in order, a few pleasant commonplaces exchanged, and the trio adjourned for consultation. Trained to their work of self-repression, not one of them had given the slightest hint of what was feared, but their precautions were undone by the thoughtless haste of the watcher outside.

Miss Munns was hovering about the landing awaiting the verdict, and trembling at the thought of the news which she might have to send to her brother, when the door opened and the surgeon came towards her. Dr Horton and the nurse followed, and before the door was closed behind them an eager whisper burst from her lips--

"Can you save it? Must you ampu--"

Before the word was completed the surgeon's hand was over her lips, Whitey brought to the door with a bang, and three pale faces stared at each other in consternation. Had Sylvia heard? Could she have overheard? That was the question which was agitating every mind. They strained their ears for a cry from the sick-room, but no cry came.

Whitey looked at the doctor and made a movement towards the door, and he bent his head in a.s.sent.

"Yes! Go in as if you had forgotten something. She may have fainted.

Poor child, it was enough to make her!"

Tears of remorse were standing in Aunt Margaret's eyes, but she waited silently enough now while Whitey re-entered the room and strolled across to the window to pick up the book in which she wrote the daily report.

She smiled at Sylvia as she pa.s.sed, and Sylvia looked at her quietly, quite quietly, and the dark eyes showed no signs of tears. Whitey went back to the doctors with lightened face, and eased their minds by a definite a.s.surance.

"She heard nothing. She is lying quite still and composed. She cannot possibly have heard."

They turned and went downstairs to the dining-room. Sylvia heard their footsteps die away in the distance, the opening and shutting of the door. The brown eyes shone with unnatural brilliancy, the hot hands were clasped tightly together beneath the sheet.