Stanor Vaughan was deputed to take Pixie in to dinner that evening, an arrangement which at the beginning of the meal appeared less agreeable to him than to his partner. He cast furtive glances at the small, plain, yet mysteriously attractive little girl, who was the sister of the beautiful Mrs Hilliard, the while she ate her soup, and found himself attacked by an unusual nervousness. He didn’t know what to say: he didn’t know how to say it. He had made a bad start, and he wished with all his heart that he could change places with Carr and “rot” with that jolly Miss Ward. All the same, he found himself curiously attracted by this small Miss O’Shaughnessy, and he puzzled his handsome head to discover why.
There was no beauty in the little face, and, as a rule, Stanor, as he himself would have expressed it, had “no use” for a girl who was plain. What really attracted him was the happiness and serenity which shone in Pixie’s face, as light shines through the encircling glass, for to human creatures as to plants the great necessity of life is sun, and its attraction is supreme. Walk along a crowded street and watch the different faces of the men and women as they pass by—grey faces, drab faces, white faces, yellow faces, faces sad and cross, and lined and dull, faces by the thousand blank of any expression at all, and then here and there, at rare, rare intervals, a live face that speaks. You spy it afar off—a face with shining eyes, with lips curled ready for laughter, with arching brows, and tilted chin, and every little line and wrinkle speaking of life.
That face is as a magnet to attract not only eyes, but hearts into the bargain; the passers-by, rouse themselves from their lethargy to smile back in sympathy, and pass on their way wafting mental messages of affection.—“What a dear girl!” they cry, or “woman,” or “man,” as the case may be. “What a charming face! I should like to know that girl.” And the girl with the happy face goes on her way, all the happier for the kindly, thoughts by which she is pursued.
When strangers were first introduced to Pixie O’Shaughnessy they invariably catalogued her as a plain-looking girl; when they had known her for an hour they began to feel that they had been mistaken, and at the end of a week they would have been prepared to quarrel with their best friend if he had echoed their own first judgment. The charm of her personality soon overpowered the physical deficiency.
Stanor Vaughan was as yet too young and prosperous to realise the real reason of Pixie’s attraction. He decided that it was attributable to her trim, jaunty little figure and the unusual fashion in which she dressed her hair. Also she wore a shade of bright flame-coloured silk which made a special appeal to his artistic eye, and he approved of the simple, graceful fashion of its cut.
“Looks as if she’d had enough stuff!” he said to himself, with all a man’s dislike of the prevailing hobble. He pondered how to open the conversation, asking himself uneasily what punishment the girl would award him for his faux pas of the afternoon. Would she be haughty? She didn’t look the kind of little thing to be haughty! Would she be cold and aloof? Somehow, glancing at the irregular, piquant little profile, he could not imagine her aloof. Would she snap? Ah! Now he was not so certain. He saw distinct possibilities of snap, and then, just as he determined that he really must make the plunge and get it over, Pixie leaned confidentially toward him and said below her breath—
“Please talk! Make a start—any start—and I’ll go on. ... It’s your place to begin.”
“Er—er—” stammered Stanor, and promptly forgot every subject of conversation under the sun. He stared back into the girl’s face, met her honest eyes, and was seized with an impulse of confession. “Before I say anything else, I—I ought to apologise, Miss O’Shaughnessy. I’m most abominably ashamed. I’m afraid you overheard my—er—er—w–what I said to Miss Ward at tea—”
“Of course I heard,” said Pixie, staring. “What could you expect? Not four yards away, and a great bass voice! I’m not deaf. But there’s no need to feel sorry. I thought you put it very nicely, myself!”
“Nicely!” He stared in amaze. “Nicely! How could you possibly—”
“You said I had given Esmeralda my share. I’d never once looked at it in that way; neither had any one else. And it’s so soothing. It gives me a sort of credit, don’t you see, as well as a pride.”
She was speaking honestly, transparently honestly; it was impossible to doubt that, with her clear eyes beaming upon him, her lips curling back in laughter from her small white teeth. There was not one sign of rancour, of offence, of natural girlish vanity suffering beneath a blow.
“Good sport!” cried Stanor, in a voice, however, which could be heard by no one but himself. His embarrassment fell from him, but not his amazement; that seemed to increase with each moment that passed. His glance lingered on Pixie’s face, the while he said incredulously—
“It’s—it’s wonderful of you. I’ve known heaps of girls, but never one who would have taken it like that. You don’t seem to have a scrap of conceit—”
“Ex-cuse me,” corrected Miss O’Shaughnessy. For the first time she seemed to be slightly ruffled, as though the supposition that she could be bereft of any quality, or experience common to her kind was distinctly hurtful to her pride. “I have! Heaps! But it’s for the right things. I’ve too much conceit to be conceited about things about which I’ve no right to be conceited. I’m only conceited about things about which I’m—”
“Conceited enough to know are worth being jolly well conceited about,” concluded Stanor, and they laughed together in merry understanding.
“That’s it,” agreed Pixie, nodding. “I used to be conceited about being plain, because it was so unusual in our family that it was considered quite distinguished, and my father used to boast at the hunt that he had the ugliest child in the county, though it was himself that said it. But,” she gave the slightest, most ephemeral of sighs, “I’ve lived through that. I’m conceited now about—other things.”
“Lots of them, I’m sure. There must be lots,” agreed Stanor, with a sincerity which condoned the banality of the speech. “About your good nature for one thing, I should say, and your generosity in forgiving a blundering man, and your jolly disposition which makes you smile when another girl would have been wild. I can understand all those and a lot more, but, just as a matter of curiosity, I should like to know what are you conceited about most?”
Pixie O’Shaughnessy smiled. There was evidently no doubt in her own mind as to her reply. The slim figure straightened, the little head tilted in air. Quick and crisp came the reply—
“I can make people do what I like!”
“Can you, though!” exclaimed Stanor blankly. The statement seemed to threaten a mysteriously personal application, and he relapsed into a ruminating silence, the while his companion employed herself cheerfully with her dinner and the looks and conversation of her companions.
It was one of Pixie’s special gifts to be able to do at least three things at the same time with quite a fair amount of success. She could, for instance, write a business-like letter while carrying on an animated conversation with a friend, and keeping an eye on a small child tottering around the room. Brain, eyes, and limb were alike so alert that what to slower natures would have been impossible, to her involved no effort at all.
Therefore, when about two minutes later Stanor opened his lips again to utter a short, urgent “How?” she had not the slightest difficulty in switching back to the subject, though she had been at the moment in the midst of an absorbing calculation as to the number of yards of lace on a dress of a lady farther down the table, and in drawing mental designs of the way it was put on, to enclose to Bridgie in her next letter home.
“How?”
“I understand them,” said Pixie deeply. “You can open any door if you have the key, but most people go on banging when it’s shut. I wait till I find my key, and then I keep it ready until the moment arrives when I wish to get in.”
Stanor’s broad shoulders gave an involuntary movement which might almost have been taken for a shiver. Once again he felt a mysterious conviction of a personal application. All his life long the phrase had rung in his ears, “I don’t understand you!” “If I could once understand you!” and for lack of that understanding there had been trouble and coldness between himself and his nearest relative. Proverbially he was difficult to understand; and he had prided himself on the reputation. Who wanted to be a simple, transparent fellow, whom any one could lead? This was the first time in his life that he had come into contact with a girl who announced herself an expert understander of human nature. He wondered vaguely what, given the initial success, Pixie would wish him to do, hesitated on the point of inquiry, thought better of it and turned the conversation to impersonal topics.
After dinner Pixie sat on a sofa in the drawing-room enjoying a temporary tête-à-tête with the other girl visitor. Miss Ward’s hair was, if possible, smoother than ever, and she wore a velvet dress almost exactly matching it in shade, which seemed to Pixie’s unsophisticated eyes an extraordinarily sumptuous garment for a young girl to wear. Her eyes were brown, too—bright, quick-glancing eyes full of interest and curiosity. When she spoke her nationality became once more conspicuous.
“Miss Pat-ricia O’Shaughnessy, I guess you and I have got to be real good friends! I’ve been spoiling for another girl to enjoy this trip with me. If you’re having a good time, it makes it twice as good to have a girl to go shares, and compare notes, and share the jokes. You look to me as if you could enjoy a joke.”
“I was brought up to them,” Pixie affirmed. “I couldn’t live without. There’s nothing to eat, nor to drink, nor to do, nor to have that I couldn’t give up at a pinch, but a sense of humour I—must have! If you feel the same, we’re friends from this minute. ... Would you mind telling me as a start just exactly who you are?”
Miss Ward’s face fell. Her white brows knitted in a frown.
“I’m an Amurrican,” she announced. “Mr and Mrs Hilliard had an introduction to my people when they visited the States, and when I came over to Europe they invited me here. I’m proud to death of being an Amurrican; that’s of course! But there’s something else. You might as well know it first as last.” She straightened herself and drew a fluttering breath. “I’m in trade! I’m Ward’s Unrivalled Piquant Pickles!”
“Wh–what?” Pixie stammered in confusion, as well she might, for the announcement was unusual, to say the least of it.
“Pickles! Cauliflower, and cabbage, and little snippets of vegetables floating in piquant sauce, in fat, square bottles. I make them in my factory. If you went over to the States you’d see my placards on every wall, and inside magazines, and on the back sheets of newspapers—a big, fat man eating a plate of cold meat with Ward’s unrivalled piquants by his side. They used to be my father’s: now they’re mine. I am the Unrivalled Piquant Pickles. I run the factory. The profits grow more e-normous every year. There’s no other partners in it, only Me!”
If at the beginning of her speech the speaker had made an affectation of humility, she certainly ended on a note of pride, and Pixie’s admiration was transparently evident.
“Think of that now! A whole factory, and pickles, too! I adore pickles, especially the fat, cauliflowery bits. And to see one’s own name on the hoardings! I’d be so proud!”
“Honest Injun, you would? You don’t feel proud and lofty because I’m in trade, and had a grandfather who couldn’t read, while your ancestors have been grandees for centuries? Many English people do, you know. They have a way of looking at me as if I were a hundred miles away, and stunted at that. And others who do receive me don’t trouble to hide that it’s for the sake of the dollars. A girl likes to be cared for for herself: she wants people should judge her by what she is. It’s a big handicap, Pat-ricia, to be too rich.”
“I’ll take your word for it, me dear, having no experience,” said Pixie graciously; “but I’d like to be tried. As for caring—no one could help it. I do already, and I’ve only known you three hours, and Esmeralda said you were nice enough to be Irish, and it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to please her fancy.”
“She’s a beautiful princess. She’s been real sweet to me over here. I’m crazy about her!” Honor affirmed in the slow, dragging voice which went so quaintly with her exaggerated language. “But one Mrs Hilliard don’t make a world. You’ve got to be just as good to me as you know how, Pat-ricia, for I’ve got no one belonging to me on this side nearer than an elderly cousin, twice removed, and it’s a lonesome feeling.
“You see, it isn’t only what people think of me, it’s the mean, suspicious feelings I’ve gotten towards them, as the result of being brought up an heiress. If I could tell you all I’ve endoored! The things I’ve been told! The things I’ve overheard! Twenty-three men have asked me to marry them, and there wasn’t an honest heart among the crowd. I’m not a new-fashioned girl: I’m made so’s I’d love my own home; but sure as fate I’ll die an old maid, for I run away from fortune-hunters, and the honest men run away from me. If a man happened to be poor and proud, it would be a pretty stiff undertaking to propose to the biggest pickle factory in the world, and I guess I don’t make it any easier. You see it’s like this: the more I’m anxious that—that, er—er,” she stammered uncertainly for a moment, then with forcible emphasis brought out a plural pronoun, “they should care for me really and truly for myself, the more I think that they only think—”
“Exactly!” interrupted Pixie, nodding. “I quite understand.” And indeed she looked so exceedingly alert and understanding that Honor flushed all over her small, pale face, and made haste to change the conversation.
“How did you get on with your partner at dinner? Pretty well, eh? He can be real charming when he likes, and there’s no doubt but he’s good to look at. I’ve met him quite a good deal since I’ve been over here, for he’s been staying at several houses at the same time. From a European point of view, we seem quite old friends, and I’ve a kind of fellow-feeling for him, poor boy, for he’s a sufferer from my complaint of being too well off for his own good.”
Pixie nodded several times without speaking, her lips pursed in knowing, elderly fashion.
“That accounts for it,” she said, and when Honor queried eagerly as to her meaning, her reply had a blighting insinuation.
“I’m accustomed to soldiers—men who can fight.”
“That’s not fair!” cried Honor sharply. She straightened herself and tilted her head at an aggressive angle. “That’s not fair. I guess Stanor Vaughan and I have to go through our own military training, and it’s a heap more complicated than marching round a barrack yard! We’re bound to make our own weapons, and our enemies are the worst that’s made—the sort that comes skulking along in the guise of friends. There aren’t any bands playing, either, to cheer us along, and when we win there are no medals and honours, only maybe an aching heart!”
She drew herself up with a startled little laugh.
“Mussy! Listen to me sermonising.—I guess I’d better get back to facts as fast as I know how. ... When I said Stanor was too well off, I didn’t mean money exactly, but things are too easy for him all round. He’s handsome, and strong, and clever, and charming, and there’s an uncle in the background who plays fairy godfather and plans out his life ahead, so that he has nothing to worry about like other young men. He’s not an old uncle really: he’s almost young, but he had an accident as a boy which laid him up for quite a spell, and turned him into a shy recluse. Then when at last he recovered, he was lame, so of course he was cut off from active life, and I guess from what I’ve heard that he’s sensitive about it. Anyway, he lives all alone, and has adopted Stanor as a kind of son, and fusses over him like a hen with one chick—a bit more than the young man appreciates, I fancy.”
“How fuss? In what way?”
“Oh! Ambitious, don’t you know,” Miss Ward explained vaguely. “All the things he ever wanted to be and to do, and couldn’t, he is determined that Stanor shall do for him. He is clever, and studious, and serious, so he is set on it that the poor boy should be a book-worm, too, and put study before everything else, and have serious ideas on—er—er—the responsibility of property.” Honor frowned at the tips of her small satin shoes. “Drains, you know, and cottages, and overcrowding the poor. Of course that kind of thing comes easy enough when you are thirty-five and lame, but poor Stanor is only twenty-four, and as handsome as paint. It’s difficult to be serious-minded at twenty-four, and patient with people who fuss!”
Pixie knitted her brows with an air of perturbation.
“But I hope he is nice to his uncle. It would be so hard to be hurt in your body and hurt in your mind at the same time. It’s bad enough for him, poor creature, to have to sit still and live his life through another. His heart is not crippled, nor his mind, nor his will, and fancy, me dear, going on being patient, day after day, year after year, while your body held you back, and you longed, and couldn’t, and felt the spirit to move a mountain, and were obliged to lie still on a sofa!” Pixie bounced in a characteristic fashion on her own sofa corner, and whisked a minute pocket-handkerchief to her eyes. “Excuse me, me dear, will you change the conversation? I was always soft-hearted, but red eyes at a dinner party are not à la mode. ... Let’s talk about pickles!—”
Geoffrey Hilliard and his two guests entered the drawing-room, and Pixie’s eyes turned to greet them with a smile. She was longing to talk to each one of them in turns, and with her usual complacency was assured that each would reciprocate the wish. But the next moment brought with it a jar, for Geoffrey crossed the room to join his wife, and the two younger men made a bee-line for the chair by the other side of the sofa, whereon Honor sat ensconced!
It was only a minute, less than a minute, before Stanor had established a lead, and Mr Carr’s deviation to the left was a triumph of smiling composure; nevertheless, Pixie’s sharp eyes had seen and understood, and her heart felt a natural girlish pang. At twenty it is hard to accept with resignation the part of second fiddle, and Pixie’s generosity had its limits—as whose has not? She had looked at Honor’s pretty face and costly gown, had heard of her wealth and independence with the purest and most ungrudging pleasure, but when it became a case of superior popularity, that was a very different matter! Positively, it was quite an effort to twist her lips into a smile to greet Mr Carr, and it made matters no better to perceive the artificiality of his response.
He was a man several years older than the handsome Stanor, and his type of face was so essentially legal that his profession as barrister could be guessed even before it was known. His chin was the most pronounced feature of the face—it was really interesting to discover just how assertive a chin could be. It was a prominent, deeply indented specimen, which ascribed to itself so much power of expression that even the eyes themselves played a secondary part. The tilt of it, the droop of it, the aggressive tilt forward were each equally eloquent, and, one felt sure, must make equal appeal to a British jury.
At this moment, however, there was no jury at hand—only Pixie O’Shaughnessy, feeling very small and snubbed in her corner of the sofa, and robbed for the moment of her accustomed aplomb by the blighting consciousness that she was not wanted.
Robert Carr’s chin was leaning very dejectedly forward; he would have voted his companion a tongue-tied little bore if Stanor Vaughan had not taken the opportunity of a moment when his host was absent from the dining-room to recount her “sporting” forgiveness of his own faux pas.
“That’s the right sort. I like that girl!” had been Robert’s reply, and the good impression was strong enough to withstand a fair amount of discouragement.
So he discoursed to Pixie on the subject of pictures, of which she knew nothing; and she switched the conversation round to music, of which he knew less; and she cast furtive glances of longing towards the other couple, who were laughing and chattering together with every appearance of enjoyment, and he kept his eyes rigorously averted, while his chin drooped ever lower and lower in growing depression. Later on the whole party played several rather foolish games, of which Pixie had never heard before, and in which she consequently did not shine, which was still another depressing circumstance to add to the list.
When Esmeralda escorted her sister upstairs to bed she said blightingly, “You were very dull to-night, Pixie. Were you shy, by any chance? Please don’t be shy; it’s such poor form!” which was not the most soothing night-cap in the world for a young woman who had privately made up her mind to take society by storm. Not since the first night in the dormitory at Holly House had Pixie felt so lone and lorn as she did when the door was shut, and she was left alone in the big, luxurious bedroom. She stood before a swing mirror, gazing at her own reflection, contrasting it with those of Esmeralda and Honor, and reflecting on her sister’s parting words.
“This,” said she to herself, with melancholy resignation—“this is the sort of discipline that is good for the young! At this rate I’ll grow so chastened that they won’t recognise me when I go home.” For a whole, minute she stood mute and motionless, pondering over the prospect; then the light danced back into her eyes, she shrugged her shoulders, and composedly began her undressing.
The next day broke bright and warm, and after a leisurely breakfast the four visitors strolled about for an hour, looking at the dogs and horses and playing with the two small boys, who were making all the mischief they could on the cedar lawn, while their French nurse looked on with sympathetic enjoyment.
Marie was quite a character in the household, and was admitted to a degree of intimacy rarely accorded to an English domestic. She was that somewhat unusual combination, a Parisian Protestant, but in other respects remained one of the most typically French creatures who was ever born. Meet her in any quarter of the world, in any nation, in any garb, and for no fraction of a moment could the beholder doubt her nationality. She was French in appearance, in expression, in movement, in thought, in character, and in deed; lovable, intelligent, vivacious, easily irritated, but still more easily pleased, sharp of tongue, tender of heart, and full to overflowing with humour. In appearance Marie was small and slight, with a sallow complexion which was the bane of her life, black hair and beautiful white teeth. No one could call her handsome, but she had certainly an attraction of her own.
This morning Pixie arrived upon the scene in time to overhear a typical conversation between the nurse and her two charges. Geoff, the elder of the two brothers, a handsome, imperious youngster, having overheard a chance remark as to his own likeness to his mother, was engaged in a rigorous cross-questioning of Marie, on the subject.
“Marie, am I beautiful?”
“Leetle boys are not beautiful. It is enough when they are good.”
“My mother is beautiful. Mr Carr says I am like my mother.”
“Ugly people can be like beautiful people. How can a dirty little boy be like a belle grande dame? Regard thy hands! Four times already have they been scrubbed.”
“My hands can be clean when I like. I was talking of if I was beautiful.”
“Silence, miserable one! The appearance is of no account,” pronounced Marie boldly. “To be good is better than beauty.”
Geoffrey drew his brows together in a frown. He was displeased, and when he was displeased he made himself felt.
“I should fink, Marie,” he said deliberately, “that you must be the goodest person in all the world.”
The inference was plain, so plain that sensitive little Jack coloured up to the roots of his hair. Jack was the sweetest and most lovable of children—a flaxen-haired cherub, whose winning face and gentle ways made him universally beloved. Among the children of the second generation he stood out pre-eminently, and every one of his aunts and uncles enshrined him in a special niche of affection. Pixie had known many searchings of heart because of her own partiality, but was fain to console herself by the thought that Jack was even more like the beloved Bridgie than Bridgie’s own sturdy, commonplace son.
As for Jack, he loved everybody, Marie among the number, and, feeling her depreciated, rushed stutteringly to the rescue.
“Oh, Geoff!” he cried eagerly. “You souldn’t! You souldn’t, Geoff! I know somefing that’s uglier than Marie—”
Geoff’s scowl deepened. He might insinuate, but a barefaced putting into words outraged his feelings. His eyes sent out flashes of lightning at the innocent little blunderer, but Marie’s eyes shone; her face was one beam of tender amusement.
“What then, chérie? Tell thy Marie!”
“M–monkeys!” lisped Jack.
The roar of derision which greeted this consolatory statement brought the startled tears into Jack’s eyes, but Marie’s arms wrapped round him, and her voice cooed in his ear.
“Little pigeon! little cabbage! Weep not, my darling! Marie does not laugh. Marie understands. It is true! The monkeys are more ugly than I.”
Pixie turned, to find Esmeralda standing beside her, her brows frowning, while her lips smiled. She put her hand through her sister’s arm and drew her away.
“Leave them alone; Marie manages them best. Poor, weeny Jack! He meant so well!” She drew a long sigh. “Those two boys are just a newer edition of their parents. Little Jack is Geoffrey over again—just the same kind, patient, sensitive disposition; and Geoff is me. When he is in one of his moods it’s like looking at myself in a mental glass. I’m furious with him for showing me how hateful I can be, and at the same time I understand what he is feeling so well that my heart nearly breaks with sympathy. It’s terrible to feel that one is showing a bad example to one’s own child, when one cares so much that at any moment one would be willingly flayed alive to do him good!”
“Improve your example, me dear—wouldn’t that be simpler!” cried Pixie, with an air of breezy common sense which was in startling contrast to the other’s tragic fervour.
There was a time for everything, Pixie reflected, and it did not seem a judicious moment for a hostess to indulge in heroics, what time the members of her house-party were advancing to meet her with faces wreathed in expectancy. They made a goodly picture in the spring sunshine—the little trim girl and the two tall men attired in the easy country kit which is so becoming to the Anglo-Saxon type. The young hostess looked at them and gave a start of recollection.
“Oh, of course! I was forgetting. ... We have been arranging a picnic. Geoff has ordered the big car for eleven. He is to drive us a twenty-mile spin to the beginning of Frame Woods. The chauffeur will go on by train and meet us there, to take the car round by the high-road and meet us a few miles farther on with the hampers. The woods are carpeted with primroses just now, so we shall enjoy the walk, and it will give us an appetite for lunch.”
Pixie gave a little prance of jubilation.
“Lovely! Lovely! I adore picnics! We’ll gather, sticks to boil a kettle, to make tea, and boil eggs, like we used to do at home when any one had a birthday. And the sticks always fell in, and the water got smoked!”
Honor and the two men had joined the sisters by this time, and stood looking on with amusement.
“Miss O’Shaughnessy seems to appreciate smoked tea,” said Stanor, and Pixie sturdily defended her position.
“I don’t; it’s hateful! But you can have nice tea every day, of your life, and the game is worth the candle! You can always pour it away and drink milk, and you’ve had all the fun—gathering the wood, and stoking, and looking at the smoke, and the blaze, and hearing the crackle, and smelling the dear, woody smell—”
“And blacking your hands, and spoiling your temper, and waiting for—how many hours does it take for a watched kettle to boil?—and in the end throwing away the result! You’re easily pleased, Miss O’Shaughnessy!”
“I am, praise be!” assented Pixie, with a fervour which brought four pairs of eyes upon her with a mingling of interest and admiration.
So far as features were concerned, it was a plain little face on which they gazed; yet no one could have called it plain at that moment, for, it was irradiated by that rarest of all beauties, an expression of radiant contentment. In comparison with that face those of the beholders appeared tired and discouraged, old before their time, by reason of drooping lips, puckered brows, and wrinkled foreheads; and it was evident that they themselves were aware of the fact, and stood, as it were, as amateurs before a master. Robert Carr poked forward his chin, and stared at her between narrowed eyes. Handsome Stanor smiled approval, Honor slipped a little hand through her arm, and Esmeralda sighed and frowned, and said with a shrug—
“Oh, we’ve lived past that, Pixie! Nowadays we take thermos bottles, and luncheon baskets, and hot-water dishes, and dine just as—uninterestingly as we do at home! English people wouldn’t thank you for a scramble. You must wait until you go back to Knock to Jack and Sylvia, and even there the infection is creeping. Jack is developing quite a taste for luxury.”
“I like it myself. Dear Mrs Hilliard, please let us have luxuries to-day!” Stanor pleaded; and Joan turned back to the house to superintend arrangements, while the four young people sauntered slowly about the grounds. Honor’s hand still rested on Pixie’s arm, and her voice had a wistful tone as she said—
“I’d like to fix a picnic your way some time, Pat-ricia! It would be a heap more fun. It must be fine to be a large family and make believe together. It’s a problem for an only child to make mischief all by itself. ... Did you have real good times in that old castle with the funny name?”
“We did!” affirmed Pixie eloquently. “There were so many of us, and so little to go round, that we were kept busy contriving and scheming the whole time, and, when that failed, falling back on imagination to fill in the gaps. It’s more comfortable to be rich, but it’s not half so exciting. When you have very few things, and wait an age for them, it’s thrilling beyond words when they do arrive. When Bridgie re-covered the cushions in the drawing-room we all came to call in a string, and sat about on chairs, discussing the weather and studying the colour effects from different angles. Then we turned on the light and pretended to be a party. I suppose Esmeralda never notices a cushion!”
Pixie sighed, and Honor stared, and Robert Carr looked from one to the other, his thin lips twitching in sarcastic fashion.
From Pixie O’Shaughnessy to Bridgie Victor:
“Not a moment have I had to write to you, Honey, since the first wee note, and I’ve been here a whole three days. It’s the most distracting thing in the world when you’ve nothing to do, and takes up more time than you’d believe. I think of you all in the morning in the dear little house, every one bustling round, and only longing for more hands and legs to get along the quicker, while here we sit, the six of us, dawdling over breakfast, with not a thing to think of but how to waste the time until we can decently begin to eat again! It isn’t energetic, and it isn’t useful, and it isn’t wise, or noble, or improving, or anything of the kind, but I won’t disguise from you, my dear, that, by way of a change, it’s exceedingly agreeable to the feelings.
“In Esmeralda’s language, there is no one here at present, which means that there are three other visitors besides my important self, and, what is more, my dear, there’s a full-fledged romance being acted under my very eyes. Here’s luck! Aren’t things kind to happen so conveniently for me?
“Heroine. Honor Ward, aged twenty-four. Orphan. Proprietress of Piquant Pickles Factory, Cheeving, Massachusetts, USA. Honor, who is of fair and pleasing exterior, is spending a year in Europe visiting various friends and connections. Honor is sensitive as to her enormous fortune, and suspects:—
“Robert Carr, Hero in Chief, of being attracted thereby. Robert Carr is a barrister engaged in climbing the ladder. He loves Honor, but resents her attitude, and talks assiduously to:—
“Patricia O’Shaughnessy, youngest scion of the house. Patricia is plain, but fascinating, and of noble disposition. She is anxious to reconcile the lovers. The more so as she herself prefers the companionship of:—
“Stanor Vaughan, Secondary Hero, a beauteous youth of fair estate. Stanor being ardently in love with himself, does not return her passion. He treats her with sisterly affection. Patricia hides her chagrin beneath a mask of gaiety.
“How’s that for a start, Honey? Pretty thrilling, eh? Don’t be anxious about the mask! It’s so life-like that it deceives even myself into believing that it’s the genuine article, but when dramatic happenings are around, it isn’t Pixie O’Shaughnessy who will stand aside and take no part!
“On Wednesday we went for a picnic. It was meant to be a picnic de luxe, but fate was kind to us, and it turned out very alfresco indeed. We started in the big car, Geoffrey driving, and all sorts of good things piled up in hampers, and at an appointed place the chauffeur met us and took possession, while we walked on through the woods. Such woods, Bridgie; all sweet, and dim, and green, the trunks of the great old beeches standing up straight and tall like the pillars of a great cathedral, and sweet, innocent little primroses peeping up through the moss, and last year’s leaves crackling under foot. Those primroses went straight to my head; I felt quite fey.
“Strictly, between me and your sisterly ear, I was very amusing indeed, and they all appreciated me very much! And we laughed and talked, and finally began to sing.
“‘You have a quite too beautiful voice, Miss O’Shaughnessy. Won’t you sing to us in the drawing-room to-night?’
“‘How sweet of you! Really, I shall be too charmed!’ (This is the orthodox fashionable manner of speaking. Let us be fashionable or die!)
“We sang glees. Esmeralda and I took contralto; there was practically no treble, for Honor’s squeak was drowned fathoms deep; Geoffrey and Mr Carr droned bass, and Stanor Vaughan took tenor, rather out of tune it’s true, but no man with that profile could be expected to condescend to bass! We sang ‘Come and see the daylight dawning, on the meadow far away,’ and Mr Carr said he must really make a point of going some day, and we’ve planned an early walk for next week, if any one can wake up in time. We roared ‘All among the barley,’ until the primroses looked quite abashed, and turned into ‘Good-night, good-night beloved,’ to soothe them down again, and we grew so intimate and festive, and they all said, ‘What next, Miss O’Shaughnessy, what next?’ Really, my dear, I was a succès fou.
“But more is yet to come. It was so lovely and we were enjoying ourselves so much, that we dallied about, and took extra little détours, so that it was nearly two o’clock when we arrived at the appointed spot, and imagine, my dear, our thwarted hunger and thirst, when not a vestige of a car could we behold! It was no use waiting, because if all had gone right it should have been waiting for us for an hour at least. So we held a council of war at the side of the road.
“Esmeralda. ‘I shall give Dawson notice At Once! He has made some stupid mistake, and gone to the wrong place. I’ve no patience with blunderers.’ (She hasn’t.)
“Geoffrey. ‘Something may have gone wrong with the car. Don’t blame the poor fellow till you are sure he deserves it.’
“Stanor. ‘I don’t care one rap about Dawson. I want my lunch! With the luxuries! What price expectation now, Miss O’Shaughnessy?’
“Honor. ‘I’m sorry to be disagreeable, but I’ve a blister on my heel. If it’s a case of walking back, I must bid you all a fond adieu and take to a forest life.’
“Robert Carr. ‘What can you expect if you start out on a country walk in ball-room slippers?’
“Honor said: ‘They aren’t, and, anyway, I don’t expect sympathy from you,’ and I said: ‘Isn’t there an opening into the road a little nearer the village where the car may be waiting all the time?’
“‘Mrs Dick,’ quoted Geoffrey,—‘your common sense is invaluable!’ and off he started in advance while we all trailed in the rear, along the dusty high-road this time, and not by any means in a singing mood. Esmeralda stalked, and Honor limped. She hadn’t done it a bit before, so it came on rather suddenly, and Stanor offered her his arm, and she hung upon it, and Mr Carr talked politics to me, and I tried to quote Dick’s remarks and appear intelligent, but it didn’t come off.
“It was a mile, and more. It seemed like three, and when we arrived at the opening the car was not there. We sat down against the dusty hedgerow and gave way to despair. Here we were stranded five weary miles from our base, i.e. the hampers, and what were we going to do? Every one had a different suggestion, but the object of them all was the same—get something to eat. It’s humiliating how greedy people become when they are defrauded of a meal! Dawson and the car were forgotten, everything was forgotten, and when I said that doctors were agreed that we ate too much, and an occasional starve was the most healthy thing that could happen, they looked coldly on me, and Stanor said doctors might keep their theories, but give him foie gras! Finally we agreed to be scouts and go forth on a foraging expedition through the tiny village, seeking what we might devour. Geoffrey was the scout-master, and we were to meet him at the second lamp-post and report.
“There were half a dozen cottages, one shop, and a yard where they sold coal and fresh eggs. So that meant a cottage each, and the stores thrown in. Our orders were to knock on each door and stand close so as to have a good view of the interior when it was opened. If it was a dirty interior we were to dissemble, and ask the way; if it was clean, we were to say, ‘Oh, if you please, we are stranded motorists, and do you supply plain teas?’ In case of two being clean, the choice was to be left with the scout-master, who would decide between them with tact and discretion.
“Bridgie, it was sport! They were all clean, and they all supplied plain teas, but the astounding part was that no one could supply milk! (Esmeralda says she has never yet raided an English cottage where they could.) And they all offered the same bill of fare—tea with tinned milk, eggs, and spring onions! We chose the biggest and airiest cottage, ordered eggs, looked haughtily at onions, adjourned to the village store and tried to discover some accessories among the rope, firewood, and linoleum. There was tinned salmon, but Esmeralda said she objected to us dying on her hands, and loaf sugar, and treacle, and bull’s-eyes in a glass bottle, and gingerbread biscuits (but the snap had departed, and they were so soft that you could have rolled them in balls), and some very strong-looking cheese, and rows of dried herrings packed in a box.
“It was Hobson’s choice, so we bought a herring apiece, and insisted on having each one wrapped up in paper, and carrying it across the road in our own separate hands, and I bought a pound of bull’s-eyes. They are such encouraging things on a long walk!
“It was a delicious tea. The milk was rather greasy and hard to mix, but if you didn’t think about it, it tasted almost as good as real, the eggs were fresh, and the herrings so good that Stanor ran across the road for more, and we made time with bread and butter until they were cooked. And we gave not a thought to the motor; it was only when the sixth plate of bread and butter had been eaten to a crumb that we remembered the miles between us and the nearest station. Five or six it was, nothing to trouble ordinary people, even if they would have preferred a comfortable car, but there was Honor! She had slipped off her shoe under the table, and when she tried to put it on again it hurt so badly that she could hardly hobble across the room, and there was not a vehicle within miles.
“We all fussed and wondered what could be done, except Mr Carr, who strolled calmly out of the house without a word, lighting a cigarette as he went, and after that Honor’s foot got so suddenly worse that the tears came to her eyes. Five minutes later when we were still fussing and settling nothing, back he came, and in his hands, what do you think?—you’d never guess—a pair of men’s carpet slippers! I remember in a dim, sub-conscious fashion having seen them hanging up in drab and crimson bunches from the ceiling of the shop, but it had never occurred to me that they were to wear!”
“‘You can walk in these!’ said Mr Carr coolly, and without waiting to hear Honor’s reply, he went down on his knees, and began unbuttoning her shoe. She has the daintiest mite of a foot you ever saw—it looked like a doll’s in his big, strong hand—but she wasn’t a bit grateful. There was a look on her face which sent all the others crowding to the door, but she glared at me to stay, and, being curious, I obeyed.
“‘Mr Carr,’ says she,—‘this is too much! It is usual in my country for a man to ask a girl what she wants, before he takes it upon himself to dictate!’
“He went on unfastening the shoe.
“Occasionally one meets people who don’t know what they do want!
“‘Well, I reckon I do. And it don’t happen to be carpet slippers. I’d look a guy. What are you taking off that shoe for anyway? That foot’s all right!’
“‘It wouldn’t be right long. One flat shoe and one French heel make a poor pair. You are going to wear both.’
“‘They’re miles too large. They’d fall off on the road.’
“‘Oh, no they won’t. I’ll take care of that,’ he said coolly, and took from his pocket two strong black bootlaces which he proceeded to criss-cross over the instep and round the ankles. She sat quite still watching him, her eyes very bright, her hands twisted together on her lap. When he had finished she put out her feet and stared at them—they did look boats!—then she looked down at him. He was still kneeling, and there was not a sound to be heard in that kitchen but the tick of the old clock and the beat, beat, beat of Pixie O’Shaughnessy’s heart.
“‘Don’t you care,’ said she softly, ‘a mite how—I—look?’
“‘Not a mite,’ says he coolly. ‘I care how you feel!’
“There was a look in his eyes which was not carpet slippers, far from it, and Honor leaped up and swept to the door with what was intended to be a haughty ‘sweep,’ but the slippers pad-padded at each step in a sort of shuffle, which was the unhaughtiest thing you could possibly imagine. Then Mr Carr gathered up the two tiny brown shoes and dusted them carefully with his handkerchief, and slipped one into each pocket of his Norfolk coat. Honor never bothered about her shoes: I suppose you don’t when you own factories, but Mr Carr walked all the way with his hands in his pockets as if he had got something there that he liked to hold.
“The children of the village followed us as we went, and called out, ‘Hi, look at her feet! Hi, Miss, is there room for me in them slippers?’ as of course they would, bless them! And I will say for her she took it smiling.
“Two miles along the road the car met us, poor Dawson apoplectic with distress and confusion. The engine had gone wrong, and he had had a terrible time getting it put right, and was distracted because he could find no way of sending on the hampers. We tumbled in and whirled home in peace and safety, but some of us were glad it had not come before.
“Don’t you wonder how I’ve accomplished this mammoth letter? There are so many times a day in this house when one has to dress in something different, to do the next thing on the programme, and experience has proved that I change in about a quarter the time taken by the others, so down I sit and fill up the wait by scribbling a page or two more, and I hope, my dear, the result will amuse you.
“I wear my best clothes all day long, eat indigestible food, go to bed late, get up later, and have Esmeralda’s maid to do my hair. You’d think it would need an effort to change into a fine lady all at once, but it doesn’t; you just slip in, and feel like a sleek, stroked cat. My dear, I was born to be a Society Belle!
“Pixie.”
“Let me break it to you tenderly,” said Mrs Hilliard to her guests at breakfast on the morning after the picnic, “that on Thursday there is a bazaar, and that it’s no use any of you making plans for that day or the morning before. The real reason why I invited you all just at this particular time is that you might assist, and be bright and pleasant and make my stall a success.”
She smiled beguilingly as she spoke, and no one could be more beguiling than Joan when it suited her own purpose. But her blandishments failed to propitiate her hearers, who one and all laid down knives and forks and fell back in their seats in attitudes expressive of dismay.
“A bazaar. Assist? What bazaar? Where? What for? This is too sudden! Why were we not warned?”
Joan twinkled mischievously.
“I was afraid you would run away. People are so surly about bazaars. It’s in the village; for a parish nurse. She’s new, and needs a cottage and furniture, and clothes and salary, and the money has to be found. I wanted Geoffrey to give it right out, it’s so much simpler, but he wouldn’t. He thought it was right that other people should help.”
Geoffrey Hilliard said nothing. It was true that he thought it a wrong attitude for a whole parish to depend upon the gifts of one rich man, but an even stronger reason had been his desire to induce his wife to take some active interest in her poorer neighbours and to occupy herself on their behalf. When Joan had unwillingly consented to take the principal stall at the bazaar, he had complacently expected a succession of committee meetings and sewing-bees, which would make a wholesome interest in a life spent too entirely in self-gratification; but the weeks had passed by, and the bazaar was at hand, and so far he had observed no symptoms of work on its behalf.
He sat silently, waiting to glean information through the questioning of his guests.
“I’ve taken part in bazaars before now. I’m an expert at bazaars. Bridgie has had part of a stall several times for things for the regiment; but where is your work?” demanded Pixie sternly. “When you take part in a bazaar it means every room crowded out with cushions and tidies, and mats and pincushions, and sitting up at nights, finishing off and sewing on prices, and days of packing up at the end, to say nothing of circulars and invitations, and your own aprons and caps. I haven’t noticed a bit of fuss. How can you be going to have a bazaar without any fuss?”
She looked so accusingly at her sister as she spoke that the others laughed, but there was a hint of uneasiness in the manner in which Joan glanced at her husband before replying.
“There isn’t any. Why should there be? Fancy work isn’t my forte, and it would bore me to sobs living bazaar for months ahead. I’ve sent money to order ready-mades, and there are a pile of packing-cases stored away upstairs which will provide more than we want. They ought to do, considering the money I’ve spent! I expect the things will be all right.”
“Haven’t you looked?” cried Pixie blankly, while Geoffrey flushed, shrugged his shoulders, and muttered a sarcastic “Charity made easy!” which brought an answering flash into his wife’s eyes.
“Is there anything particularly estimable in upsetting a whole house and wasting time in manufacturing fal-lals which nobody needs? I fail to see it,” she retorted sharply, and Geoffrey shrugged again, his face grim and displeased.
It was not a pleasant moment for the listeners, and one and all were grateful to Stanor Vaughan for the easy volubility, with which he dashed to the rescue.
“I’ll open the cases for you, Mrs Hilliard. I’m a nailer at opening cases; ought to have been a furniture remover by profession. Give me wood and nails, and a litter of straw and sawdust, and I’m in my element. Better take ’em down to the hall and unpack them there, I suppose? Safest plan with breakables. Jolly good crockery you get from abroad! I was at winter sports with my sister, and she fell in love with a green pottery cruse business, half a franc, and as big as your head. I argued with her for an hour, but it was no good, buy it she would, and cuddled it in her arms the whole way home! If you have any green cruses, Mrs Hilliard, I’ll buy a dozen!”
Esmeralda thanked him, and proceeded to explain her arrangements in a manner elaborately composed. It appeared that she had displayed considerable ingenuity in the way of saving herself trouble.
“I sent instructions to each place that every article was to be marked in plain figures. We shall just have to translate them into English money and add on a little more. It’s unnecessary to re-mark everything afresh. I’ve engaged a joiner to be at the hall ready to fix up any boards or shelves which we may need, and of course he’ll unpack. There’s not the slightest reason for any one else to break his nails; there will be enough work for us on the day.”
“Are we to be dressed up in fancy character? It’s all so sudden that I’d like to know the worst at once,” sighed Honor plaintively. “I’ve been a Swiss maiden, and I’ve been a Dolly Varden, and I’ve been the Old Woman that lived in a Shoe, so I guess I can bear another turn of the screw. But I look real sweet in my new blue gown.”
“Wear it, then, wear it. It’s ridiculous dressing up in daylight in a village hall. Let every one wear what suits them best.”
“Wait till you see my waistcoat!” cried Stanor, and they rose from the table laughing, and breakfast was at an end.
Pixie made straight for the nursery. She was jarred and troubled by the scene which had just taken place, all the more so as it was by no means the first occasion during her short visit when Geoffrey and Joan had unmistakably “jarred.”
In the old days at Knock Castle Esmeralda’s tantrums had been accepted as part of the daily life, but six years spent in the sunshine of Bridgie’s home made a difference between husband and wife seem something abnormal and shocking. Imagine Dick sneering at Bridgie! Imagine Bridgie snapping back and relapsing into haughty indifference! The thing was preposterous, unthinkable! Could that be the reason of Esmeralda’s unrest, that she and her husband had outgrown their love? Pixie felt it equally impossible at that moment to sit quietly alone, or to talk naturally to her fellow-guests, but experience had proved that the most absolutely certain method of getting out of herself was to court the society of children. So she shut herself in the nursery with the two small boys, who took eery advantage of the unexpected treat without troubling their heads as to how it had come about.
Meantime the three guests started off on the usual morning peregrination of the grounds, and Joan followed her husband to his study, found him staring aimlessly out of the window, and accosted him in cold and biting tones.
“Geoffrey, I wish to speak to you. You are entitled to your own opinions, but the next time that you find them in opposition to mine I should be obliged if you would reserve your remarks until we are alone. If you have no consideration for me, you might at least consider your guests; it cannot be agreeable for them to overhear our differences.”
Geoffrey did not move. He stood with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his head drooping forward on his breast, an air of weariness and depression in every line of his figure. For a minute there was silence, then he spoke, slowly, and with frequent breaks, as though considering each word as it came—
“That is true.—I was to blame.—I should have waited, as you say.—It shall not occur again, Joan. I apologise.”
Esmeralda looked at him. The fire died from her eyes, her lips trembled. Quick to anger, she was equally quick to penitence, and a soft word could melt her hardest mood. She made a very lovely picture at that moment, but her husband’s back was still turned. He kept his head rigorously turned aside as he crossed to his desk and seated himself on his swivel chair.
“I have ordered the car for eleven, as you wished.”
“Thank you.”
Joan knew herself to be dismissed, but she had no intention of obeying. For her impetuous nature half-measures did not exist, and a peace that was not peace with honour seemed unworthy the name. She leaned over her husband’s desk, facing him with earnest eyes.
“Geoffrey! Why were you so cross? It was unreasonable. I shall do quite well at my stall. People are sick to death of cushions and cosies, but they will snap at my beautiful things from abroad, which they don’t often have a chance of buying.”
“I am sure of it.”
“Then why—why—? What on earth put you into such a bait?”
Geoffrey put down his pen and drew a long sigh. It was easy to see that he dreaded a discussion, and was most unwillingly drawn into its toils.
“Since you ask me, Joan, I was disappointed that you had taken so little personal trouble over the affair. I could have given the money easily enough; when I refused I was thinking more of you than of any one else. I hoped this bazaar might be the means of taking you out of yourself, of bringing you in contact with people whose lives are not altogether given up to self-indulgence. Your one idea seems to have been to avoid such a course.”
“You would have liked me to have sewing meetings here as Mrs Ewart has at the vicarage: plain sewing from two to four, and then tea and buns. You would have liked to see me sitting in the evening embroidering wild roses on tray cloths, and binding shaving-cases with blue ribbon?”
“I would,” said Geoffrey sturdily. He did not smile, as he had been expected to do, but sat grim and grave, refusing to be cajoled.
Esmeralda’s anger mounted once more.
“Then I call it stupid and bigoted, and I absolutely disagree. If I’m to waste my time, I’ll waste it in my own way, not in perpetrating atrocities to disfigure another home. And I hate village sewing meetings and the dull, ugly frumps who go to them.”
Mr Hilliard took up his pen, squared his elbows, and quietly began to write.
“Geoffrey, can’t you answer when I speak to you! I’m not a child to be cowed and snubbed! I—I hate you when you get into this superior mood!”
Geoffrey lifted his face—was it the strong east light which made it suddenly appear so lined and worn? There was no anger in his face, only a very pitiful sadness.
“I am afraid there are many moods in which you ‘hate’ me, Esmeralda.”
The look on his face, the sound of the old pet name were too much for the warm Irish heart. In a moment his wife was on her knees beside him, holding his hands, pressing them to her lips, stroking them with caressing fingers.
“Geoff, Geoff, it isn’t true; you know it isn’t. I always love you, I always did. You know it is true. I was ready to marry you when I thought you hadn’t a penny. I wanted nothing but yourself.”
“I never forget it,” said Geoffrey deeply; “I never can. Sometimes—sometimes I wish it had been true, it might have been better for us both. ‘All that riches can buy’ has not made a happy woman of you, Esmeralda.” He stroked back the hair from her broad, low brow, looking with troubled eyes at the fine lines which already marked its surface. “I can give my wife many treasures, but apparently not the thing she needs most of all—the happiness which Dick Victor manages to provide for Bridgie on a few hundreds a year!”
“Bridgie is Bridgie, and I’m myself; we were born different. It’s not fair to compare us, and the advantages are not all on one side. If she has not had my opportunities, she has escaped the temptations; she might have grown selfish too. Sometimes I hate money, Geoffrey; it’s a millstone round one’s neck.”
“No!” Geoffrey squared his shoulders. “It’s a lever. I am glad to be rich; my father worked hard for his money—it was honourably gained, and I’m proud to inherit it. It is a responsibility, a heavy one, if you like, but one is bound to have responsibilities in life, and it’s a fine thing to have one which holds such possibilities. I mean to bring up the boys to take that view. But—” he paused heavily—“I’d give it up to-morrow if it could purchase peace and tranquillity, a rest from this everlasting strain!”
Something tightened over Joan’s heart; a chill as of fear passed through her blood. Geoffrey spoke quietly, so sanely, with an unmistakable air of knowing his own mind. And his manner was so cool, so detached, not one lover-like word or action had he vouchsafed in answer to her own. A chill passed through Joan’s veins, the chill of dismay which presages disaster. At that moment she divined the certainty of what she had never before even dimly imagined—the waning of her husband’s love. Like too many beautiful young wives, she had taken for granted that her place in her husband’s heart was established for life, independent of any effort to retain it. She had not realised that love is a treasure which must needs be guarded with jealous care, that the delicate cord may be strained so thin that a moment may come when it reaches breaking-point. That moment had not come yet; surely, surely, it could not have come, but she felt the shadow.
“Don’t you love me any more, Geoffrey?” she asked faintly. “In spite of all my faults, do you love me still like you did?”
It was the inevitable ending to a dissension, the inevitable question which he had answered a hundred times, and if to-day there was a new tone in the voice which spoke it, Geoffrey was not sensitive enough to notice. Few men would mark such differences in a moment of tension.
“I love you, Joan,” he answered wearily. “You are my wife; but you’ve rubbed off the bloom!”
Joan got up quietly from her knees and crossed to the door. The voice within declared that Geoffrey would call her back, that he would leap after her and clasp her in his arms, as he had done a score of times in like circumstances, that he would implore forgiveness for his cruel words. She walked slowly, pausing as she went to put a chair against the wall, to alter the position of a vase of flowers. She reached the door and cast a swift glance behind. Geoffrey had gone back to his writing; his pen travelled swiftly across the page; he did not raise his head.