Stanor Vaughan stood with his hands thrust deep into his pockets looking down upon Pixie’s pale, unconscious face. He had motored thirty miles to hear the latest news of the little patient—that was certainly one reason of his visit; but a second had undoubtedly been to see once more the little patient’s aunt! At the house he had been informed that Miss O’Shaughnessy was in the garden, and had tracked her without difficulty to her favourite seat, and now there she lay, poor, sweet, tired little soul! With her head tilted back against the hedge, and the wee mites of hands crossed upon her lap—an image of weariness and dejection.
Stanor Vaughan felt within him the stirrings of tenderness and pity with which a strong man regards weakness in any form. Pixie was by nature such a jaunty little thing that it seemed doubly pathetic to see her so reduced. A fellow wanted to take her up in his arms, and comfort her, and make her smile again. A flush rose in Stanor’s cheeks as he recalled an incident of the night of the accident. After the hurried return to the house, the three guests had sat alone, waiting in miserable suspense for the doctor’s verdict, but Pixie had disappeared. No one knew where she had gone. Honor searched for her in vain, and at last in an access of anxiety Stanor himself took up the quest. He found her at last, perched on the wide window-seat of an upper window, but all his persuasions could not move her from her post.
“Let me stay here!” she persisted. “It comforts me. I can see—I can see the lights!”
“You mean the motor lamps as they come up the drive?”
“No,” she said simply, “I mean the stars.”
Stanor was as unimaginative as most men of his age, and his first impression was that the poor little thing was off her head. He crept downstairs and rang for a basin of the good warm soup with which he and his companions had been provided an hour before. When it was brought he carried the tray carefully up three long flights of stairs, and besought of Pixie to drink it forthwith.
She shook her head, and all his persuasions could not rouse her to the exertion; but being an obstinate young man, he but set his lips and determined to succeed.
This time, however, he resorted to force instead of persuasion, for, having placed the tray on a corner of the sill, he filled the spoon with soup and held it determinedly to the girl’s lips. Now, if she moved or made a fuss, the soup would assuredly be spilled, and no living girl would voluntarily pour soup over her frock! But Pixie made no fuss. Meekly, obediently as a little bird, she opened her lips, and swallowed, and swallowed again and again, until the bowl was emptied of its contents. There was something so trustful and unconscious about the action that the young man felt the smart of tears in his eyes—the first tears he had known for many a long year.
When the soup had been finished he went away again, and came back with a warm shawl which he had procured from a maid. In wrapping it round the quiescent figure his hands had accidentally come in contact with hers, and finding them cold as ice, it seemed the natural thing to chafe them gently between his own. Quite natural also Pixie appeared to find the action, for the cold little fingers had tightened affectionately round his own. It was left to him to flush and feel embarrassed; Pixie remained placidly unmoved.
The memory of those moments was vivid with Stanor as he stood this morning looking down on the sleeping girl. All through the three days of separation her image had pursued him, and he had longed increasingly to see her again. The tragic incidents of that long night had had more effect in strengthening his dawning love than many weeks of placid, uneventful lives. It had brought them heart to heart, soul to soul; all the little veneers and conventions of society had been thrust aside, and it seemed to him that the crisis had revealed her altogether sweet and true.
When a young man is brought suddenly face to face with death, when it is demonstrated before his eyes that the life of the youngest among us hangs upon a thread, he is in the mood to appreciate the higher qualities. Stanor had told himself uneasily that he had been “too slack,” that he had not thought enough about “these things.” The friends with whom he had consorted were mostly careless pleasure-lovers like himself, but this little girl was made of a finer clay. To live with her would be an inspiration: she would “pull a fellow together.” ... There was, however, to be quite honest, another and less worthy impetus which urged Stanor forward, but over this he preferred to draw a mental veil. We are all guilty of the absurdity of posing for our own benefit, and Stanor, like the rest, preferred to believe himself actuated wholly by lofty motives rather than partially by the wounded pride of a young man who has just discovered that he has been “managed” by an elder!
He sat down on the seat beside Pixie, and laid his hand gently over hers. They opened automatically to receive it; even before she lifted her lids he felt the welcoming touch; and felt it characteristic of her nature.
“You!” she cried gladly, “Mr Vaughan, ’tis you! Oh, that’s nice! Was I sleeping, that I didn’t see you come? I thought I should never sleep again. Jack can’t sleep! If he slept he might get well.”
“He is sleeping now,” said Stanor quietly. “A man was sent to the lodge to answer all inquiries, so that there should not be even a crunch on the path. He is sleeping soundly and well. If he sleeps on—”
Pixie nodded, her face aglow.
“Oh, thank God! How I thank Him! Sleep will make all the difference. ... Till now it’s been nothing but a moment’s nap and awake again, with a scream. We’ve agonised for sleep! I could not have gone off so soundly if I hadn’t known, inside, that Jack was asleep too. When you love anyone very, very much, what touches them touches you. You can’t keep apart. You mayn’t always know it with your mind, but the best part of you, the part that feels, it knows!”
She smiled in his face with frank, glad eyes, but Stanor flushed and looked at the ground.
“Should you know it, if I were unhappy, Pixie? I should know it about you. I came this afternoon partly, mostly, because I knew how you’d be feeling, and I thought, I hoped, that I might help. Does it help you, Pixie, to have me sitting beside you, instead of being alone? Ought I to have come, or stayed away?”
“I’m glad you came; I love to have you. I’ve been sad before this, but I’ve never been sad by myself! Esmeralda isn’t my sister at this moment, she’s just Jack’s mother, and there’s only one person who can help her, and that is Jack’s father. Later on ’twill change!” A flash of joy lit up the white face. “Do you know what I’m waiting for? If Jack lives, as soon as he’s conscious and out of pain he’ll send for me! He’ll want me to tell him stories, and the stronger he grows the more stories he’ll want! He’ll need me then—they’ll all need me!”
“Of course they’ll need you. Other people need you, Pixie, besides your relations. Why do you always go back to them? I was speaking of myself. I need you! I’ve felt all at sea without you these last days. I never met a girl like you before. Most girls are all one way or another—so serious that they’re dull, or so empty-headed that it’s a waste of time to talk to them. You—you are such a festive little thing, Pixie; a fellow could never be dull in your company, and yet you’re so good! You have such sweet thoughts; you are so unselfish, so kind.”
“Go on!” cried Pixie urgently. “Go on!” Her cheeks had flushed, her eyes sparkled with animation. “It’s the most reviving thing in the world to hear oneself praised, I could listen to it for hours. In what particular way, now, would you say that I was ‘sweet?’”
She peered at him, complacent, curious, blightingly unconscious of his emotions, and the young man felt a stirring of hot impatience. Insinuation and innuendo were of no use where Pixie O’Shaughnessy was concerned; an ordinary girl might scent a proposal afar off and amuse herself by an affectation of innocence, but nothing short of a plain declaration of love would convince Pixie of his sincerity.
“Pixie,” he said suddenly, “look at me!” He took her hands in his, and drew her round so as to face him as they sat. “Look at me, Pixie,” he repeated. “Look in my eyes. Tell me, what do you see?”
Pixie looked, her own eyes wide and amazed. Her fingers stirred within his hands with a single nervous twitch, and then lay still, while into her eyes crept an expression of wonder and awe.
“I don’t know.—I don’t know. ... What do I see?”
“Love, Pixie! My love. My love for you. ... I’ve fallen in love with you, darling; didn’t you know? I knew it that last evening when we were together upstairs. I’ve known it better and better each day since; and to-day I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t wait any longer. ... Pixie, do you love me too?”
“Of course I love you. How could I help it?” cried Pixie warmly. Her fingers tightened round his with affectionate pressure, her eyes beamed encouragingly upon him.
Never could there have been a warmer, a more spontaneous response, and yet, strange to relate, its very ardour had a chilling effect, for Stanor, though young, was experienced enough to realise that it is not in this fashion that a girl receives a declaration of love from the man of her heart. He himself had struggled with shyness and agitation; he was conscious of flushed cheeks, of a hoarseness of voice, of the beating of pulses; then surely a girl taken by surprise, faced suddenly, with the question of such enormous import, should not be less moved than he.
The words died upon his lips; involuntarily his hands relaxed their grasp. There was a moment of impossible impasse and strain before, with a realised effort, he forced himself to express a due delight.
“That makes me very happy, Pixie. I—I was afraid you might not care. I’m not half good enough for you, I know that, but I’ll do my best. I’ll do everything I can to make you happy. I’m not rich, you know, darling; we should have to live on what I can make independently of the uncle, for he has peculiar views. He doesn’t wish me to marry.”
“Marry!” repeated Pixie deeply. She sat bolt upright in her seat, her eyes suddenly alight with interest and excitement. Incredible as it might appear, Stanor realised that this was the first moment when the idea of marriage had entered her brain. “Is it marrying you are talking about? You want me to marry you?”
“You funny little soul. Of course I want it. Why else should I talk about loving?”
“I thought,” she said sighing, “it was just nice feeling! It’s natural for people to love each other. When they live together in the same house and come through trouble. ... And we’re both attractive. ... You don’t need to marry every one you love!”
“I do,” declared Stanor, “when it’s a girl—when it’s you! I want to have you for my own, and keep you to myself, and how can I do that if you’re not my wife? If you love me, you must want to be with me too. Don’t you, dear, don’t you wish it? Shouldn’t you like to be my wife?”
Pixie tilted her head in her well-known attitude of consideration.
“I—I think I should!” she pronounced judicially. “I liked you from the moment we met, and you’ve a good disposition. Dispositions are important in marriage. And I’m domestic; you like domestic girls, and it’s convenient when you’re poor. ... On how much a head would you expect me to keep house?”
But that was too much for Stanor’s endurance; he seized her in his strong arms and shook her with a tender violence.
“Pixie, you little witch, don’t be so blightingly matter-of-fact! I’m making you a declaration of love. Kindly receive it in a suitable fashion. ... A—a fellow expects a girl to be a little—er—sentimental and poetic, and—er—overcome, don’t you know, not to begin at once to talk of how much a head!”
“I’ve never been proposed to before. You must excuse me if I make mistakes. I’m quite willing to be sentimental; I dote upon sentiment,” declared Pixie in anxious propitiation. ... “Let’s go back to where you were talking about me! Tell me exactly what it is that you most admire?”
Stanor had been hoping for a little adulation for himself, but he gallantly stifled his feelings and proceeded to offer the incense which he believed would be most acceptable.
“Your character, darling. Your sweet and tender heart!”
“How nice,” said Pixie flatly. She sat silent for a moment and then ventured tentatively, “Not my personal charm?”
“And your personal charm. Both! You’ve more personal charm than any girl I know.”
This was something like! Pixie beamed content. At this moment she felt really “engaged,” and agreed rapturously with all the encomiums which she had heard given to this happy condition. Success emboldened her to further flights.
“The first time you met me you didn’t admire me then! My appearance, I mean! You remember you said—”
“I did. Yes! But you were so sweet in forgiving me that I admired you instantly for that!” cried Stanor, skilfully turning the subject to safer ground. “And when you’re my wife, Pixie, you will seem the most beautiful woman in the world in my eyes. It is very unworldly of you to consent without asking more about my affairs, for I am a poor match for you, little one. It takes years for a man to make a decent income in business, and I have so little experience. My uncle has always promised to buy me a partnership in some good firm, but of course there would have to be some preliminary training. And if he did not ... approve...”
“But he must approve; we must make him. We couldn’t marry without his consent. He’s been so good to you!”
“He has, uncommonly good; but when it comes to marrying, it’s a fellow’s own affair. I shall go my own way...”
“He’s lame!”
“Dear little girl, what has that to do with the case in point?”
“Well, I think it has!” persisted Pixie obstinately. “It has to me. We must be nice to him, Stanor, and make him be pleased, whether he wants to or not. ... Did you notice how naturally I called you ‘Stanor’?”
“I did! Couldn’t you manage to put something before it by way, of completion?”
“Nice Stanor! Handsome Stanor! Clever, sensible, discriminating Stanor!”
“Quite so,” said the discriminating one dryly, “but I should have liked—” Suddenly he burst into a ringing boyish laugh. “This is the rummiest proposal that was ever made!”
Pixie looked anxious.
“Is it? ‘Rum’? What exactly does ‘rum’ mean, applied to a proposal? It didn’t sound approving. It’s my very own proposal, and I won’t have it abused. I’ve enjoyed it very much. ... I think we shall be very happy, Stanor, when we are married and settled down in our own little house.”
Stanor looked at her keenly, and as he looked he sighed.
“Dear little Pixie,” he said gently, “I hope we shall!”
“Engaged!” cried Esmeralda shrilly. “Engaged! You! To Stanor Vaughan? Pixie O’Shaughnessy, I never heard such nonsense in my life.”
“Then you’ve listened to an uncommon amount of sense. I should not have thought it, to judge from your actions,” returned Pixie, nettled, “’Twould be interesting to hear what strikes you as so ridiculous about it!”
It was three days after Stanor’s unexpected visit with its momentous consequences, but in consideration of the anxiety of Jack’s parents, the news had been withheld until the boy had been pronounced out of danger. Only this morning had the glad verdict been vouchsafed. Jack would live; given a steady, even improvement, with no unforeseen complications, he would live, and in a few weeks time be up and about once more. The eye trouble would be more lasting, for the child was of a peculiarly sensitive nature, and the shock seemed inclined to localise itself in the eyes. The sight itself would be saved, but for some years to come it would need the most careful tending. He must wear darkened spectacles; be forbidden to read; be constantly under skilled care. Given such precautions the sight would probably become normal in later years...
When the first verdict was given, the father, and mother clung to one another in an ecstasy of relief and thankfulness. Throughout those last terrible days, when every conscious breath had carried with it a prayer, Joan had looked deep into her own soul and beheld with opened eyes the precipice on which she stood. How far, how far she had travelled since those early married days, when, with her first-born in her arms, her highest ambition had been that she should be enabled so to train him that he should grow up, to be, in the words of the beautiful old phrase, “A soldier of Christ!” Of late years she had had many ambitions for her boys, but they had been ambitions of the world, worldly. The old faith had been gradually neglected and allowed to sink into the background of life. In her own strength she had walked, in her own weakness she had failed. Yet now, in default of punishment, goodness and mercy were once more to be her portion! All the nobility in Joan’s nature rose up as she pledged herself afresh to a new—a higher life! Jack would live, their boy would live—that was for days the one thought of which the parents were conscious. For the father it was perfect joy, but for the mother there still remained a pang. Only Esmeralda herself ever knew the anguish of grief which she endured on account of her baby’s altered looks. Little Jack, with his angel face, his halo of curls, his exquisite, innocent eyes, had been a joy to behold. Waking, sleeping, merry, sad—at one and every moment, of his life the mere sight of him had been as an open sesame to the hearts of those who beheld. The knife turned in his mother’s heart at the thought of Jack shorn, scarred, spectacled. She dared not confide her grief to her husband. He would not understand. Looks! What could looks matter, when the child had been delivered from death? Joan could see in imagination the expression on his face, hear the shocked tones of his voice; she would not betray her feelings and risk a break of the new, sweet understanding between them. All men were alike. There were occasions when only another woman could understand.
Joan went upstairs to the empty nursery and found Marie weeping in her chair.
“Petite lapin! Petite chérie! Petite ange! Comfort thyself, Madame,” she sobbed, “we can have glasses like the young American—she who visited Madame last year. No rims hardly to be observed! And the hair—that will grow—of a surety it will grow. A little long upon the forehead, and voilà! The scar is hid. ... A little care, Madame, a little patience, and he will be once more our petit amour!”
“Marie,” said her mistress firmly, “looks are a secondary affair. We ought to be too thankful to think of looks!”
“C’est vrai, Madame,” replied Marie demurely, “C’est vrai,” and Joan Hilliard went back to her room with a lightened heart, and determined to write at once to town to ask particulars concerning rimless spectacles.
And now here was Pixie, with this preposterous, ridiculous tale! At sight of her young sister Joan had felt a pang of contrition. She had forgotten all about her these last terrible days. Poor girl! She must have been terribly lonely, but that was the best of Pixie—she was always ready to forgive and forget. Joan kissed her warmly, murmured apologies, and inquired affectionately how the long days had been passed. And then—out it came!
“Why ridiculous?” echoed Joan. “My dear, how could it be anything else? Five days ago, when we were all together, there wasn’t a sign of such a thing. Stanor was attracted by you, of course; but he was not in love. He was always cheerful, always merry. How different from poor Robert, who is eating his heart out for Honor Ward!”
“I hope,” said Pixie deeply, “that Stanor will always keep cheerful. It won’t be my fault if he does not. No man shall ‘eat his heart out’ for me if I can help it!”
Joan glanced at her quickly. She had caught the tone of pain in the beautiful voice, and softened to it with instant response.
“Yes, dear, of course. You’d never flirt, you’re too honest, but, all the same, Pixie, I stick to my opinion. I don’t believe for a moment that Stanor Vaughan is in love with you, and I’m positively sure that you are not in love with him!”
“Can you look into my heart, Esmeralda, and see what is there?”
“Yes, I can. In this instance I can. Fifty times better than you can yourself. You are pleased, you are flattered, you are interested. You were miserable and lonely, (that’s my fault, for leaving you alone. I don’t know what Bridgie will say to me!) and Stanor was sorry for you, you appealed to his chivalry, and you were just in the mood to be swept off your feet, without realising what it all meant. Pixie, when you told me just now, you were quite calm, you never even blushed!”
“I don’t think,” reflected Pixie thoughtfully, “I ever blushed in my life.”
It occurred to her uncomfortably that Stanor also had noticed the omission, and had felt himself defrauded thereby. She wondered uneasily if one could learn to blush!
As for Esmeralda, the words carried her back in a rush to the dear days of childhood, when the little sister had been the pet and pride of the family. Indeed, and Pixie had had no need to blush! Her very failings had been twisted round to pose as so many assets in her favour, while her own happy self-confidence had instilled the belief that every one wanted her, every one appreciated. What cause had Pixie O’Shaughnessy to blush?
“Mavourneen!” cried Esmeralda tenderly, “I know. Thank God you’ve never needed to blush or feel afraid, but, Pixie, when love comes, it’s different, everything is different! It’s a new birth. The old confidence goes, for it’s a new life that lies ahead, and one stands trembling on the brink. ... If what you feel is the right thing, you’ll understand. Pixie, dear, do I seem the wrong person to talk like this? You know how it has been with us. We drifted apart—Geoff and I—so far apart that I thought ... I can’t talk of it—you know what I thought—but, Pixie think! If the feeling between us had not been the real thing, if we had married on affection only, where should we have been now? Geoffrey loved me so much that he bore with me, through all these years of strain, and when this great trouble came, he forgave me at once, forgave everything, blotted it right out, and thought of nothing but how to help me most. A cloud had rolled up between us, but it was only a cloud, the love was there all the time, hidden, like the sun, ready to shine out again. ... Oh, Pixie, dear, the right thing is so wonderful, so grand, that I can’t let you miss it for the sake of a mistake. You are so young. You don’t understand. Let me write to Stanor to-night and tell him it’s a mistake, that you didn’t know your own mind!”
“You may talk till doomsday, Esmeralda,” said Pixie quietly, “but I shall keep my word!”
Mentally Pixie had been deeply impressed by the other’s confidences, and not a little perturbed thereby, but it was against her sense of loyalty to allow such feelings to appear. To her own heart she confessed that she was altogether without this strange sense of elation, this mysterious new birth which Esmeralda considered all important under the circumstances. She was certainly happy, for with Stanor’s coming the cloud which had hovered over the house had begun to disperse. She had opened her own eyes to the good news of Jack’s first sleep, and each day the improvement had continued, while Stanor motored over, to sit by her side, cheering her, saying loving, gentle things, building castles in the air of a life together. ... Yes, she was very happy, but ... she had been happy before, there was nothing astoundingly, incredibly new in her sensations.
Pixie sent her thoughts back into the past, endeavouring to recall recollections of Joan’s engagement, of Bridgie’s, of Jack’s. Yes, certainly they had all become exceedingly different under the new conditions. She recalled in especial Bridgie’s face beneath her bridal veil. Child as she herself had been at that time she had been arrested by that expression: nor had she been allowed to forget it, for from time to time during the last six years she had seen it again. “The shiny look!” she had christened it in her thoughts. Sweet and loving were Bridgie’s eyes for every soul that breathed, but that one particular look shone for one person alone! Pixie’s heart contracted in a pang of longing; it was almost like the pang she had felt in the drawing-room of Holly House on that dread afternoon when the news of her father’s death had been broken to her—a pang of longing, a sore, sore feeling of something wanting. She shivered, then drew herself together with indignant remembrance. She was engaged! What sentiments were these for an engaged girl? How could she feel a blank when still more love was added to her share?
“If you talk till doomsday, Esmeralda, I’ll keep my word. Stanor loves me and says I can help him. I said I would, and, me dear, I will! We’ve been through a lot of trouble this last week, isn’t it a pity to try to make more for no good? My mind’s made up!”
Joan Hilliard was silent. In her heart of hearts she realised that there was nothing more to say. Pixie was Pixie. As well try to move a mountain from its place, as persuade that sweet, loving, most loyal of creatures to draw back from a solemn pledge. Something might be done with Stanor perhaps, or, failing Stanor, through that erratic person, his uncle. She must consult with Geoffrey and Bridgie, together they might insist upon a period of waiting and separation before a definite engagement was announced. Pixie was still under age. Until her twenty-first birthday her guardians might safely demand a delay. Joan knew that Stanor Vaughan had had passing fancies before now, and had little belief that the present entanglement would prove more lasting. Circumstances had induced a special intimacy with Pixie, but when they were separated he would repent.—If he himself set Pixie free! ... So far did Joan’s thoughts carry her, then, looking at the girl’s happy face, she felt a sharp pang of contrition.
“Me dear, I want you to be happy! If it makes you happy to marry Stanor, I’ll give you my blessing, and the finest trousseau that money can buy. You’re young yet, and he has his way to make. You’ll have to wait patiently, for a few years, until he can make a home, but it’s a happy time, being engaged. I feel defrauded myself to have had so little of it. Storing up things in a bottom drawer, and picking up old furniture at sales, and polishing it up so lovingly, thinking of where it is going, and letters coming and going, and looking forward to the time when he’ll come down next—’tis a beautiful time. Three or four years ought to pass like a trice!”
“Besides leaving plenty of time to change your mind. I know you, me dear!” cried Pixie shrewdly. “I see through you! You’ll be relieved to hear that the date has not been mentioned, but you can start with the trousseau as soon as you please. I’ll take it in quarterly instalments, and spin out the pleasure, besides sparing my friends the shock of seeing me suddenly turn grand. My affianced suitor is coming to proffer a formal demand for my hand. Will ye be kind to him now, and give him some tea?”
“I will,” said Joan readily. To herself she added: “We are all alike, we O’Shaughnessys, we will be led, but we will not be driven. It’s no use appearing to object! Things must just take their course...”
As little Jack continued to progress towards convalescence, the attention of the household became increasingly absorbed by the astounding fact of Pixie’s projected engagement. Bridgie, detained at home by malapropos ailments on the part of the children, wrote urgent letters by daily posts, contradicting herself on every point saving one alone—the advisability of delay. Geoffrey Hilliard as host, Dick Victor as guardian, Jack, Pat, and Miles as brothers, proposed, seconded, and carried by acclamation the same waiting policy. And no one who has the faintest knowledge of human nature will need to be told that such an attitude had the effect of rousing the youthful lovers to the liveliest impatience.
Stanor in particular was moved to rebellion. His pride was hurt by so lukewarm a reception of his addresses, which was all the more disagreeable for being unexpected. The Hilliards had shown so much friendship and hospitality to him as a friend, that he had taken for granted that they would welcome him in a closer relationship. He was not a great parti it was true, but then by her own confession Pixie had no fortune of her own, and had been accustomed to modest means. Stanor did not say to himself in so many words that he happened to possess an exceptionally handsome and popular personality, he refused even to frame a definite thought to that effect; nevertheless the consciousness was there, and added to his chagrin.
Lounging along the country lanes, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, Stanor told himself that it was a disappointing old world: a fellow always imagined that when he got engaged he would have the time of his life; in books a fellow was represented as walking upon air, in a condition of rapture too intense for belief—it was disappointing to find his own experience fall so short of the ideal!
Sweet little Pixie, of course, was a beguiling creature. Stanor would not admit any shortcomings in his fiancée, but he did allow himself to wonder tentatively if he had spoken too soon: if she were not, perhaps, a trifle young to understand the meaning of the new claim. The daily interviews which he had been vouchsafed had been full of interest and charm, but they had not succeeded in stifling the doubt which had marred the first minutes of acceptance, for alas! it was when Pixie was the most affectionate that her lover was most acutely conscious of the subtle want. And then, as if there was not already enough worry and trouble, there was the Runkle. ... The Runkle would be bound to put in his oar!
Stanor had delayed sending word of his engagement to the man who stood to him in the place of a father, silencing his conscience by the assertion that there was yet nothing to announce. Until Pixie’s guardians came down from their present unnatural position, there might be an understanding, but there could not be said to be a formal engagement.
It was Pixie herself who finally forced him to dispatch the news. It was Stanor’s first experience of arguing a point with a woman, and a most confusing experience he found it. Pixie invariably agreed with every separate argument as he advanced it, saw eye to eye with him on each separate point, sympathised warmly with his scruples, and then at the very moment when she was expected to say “yes” to the final decision, said “no,” and stuck to it with conviction. Questioned as to the reason of such inconsistency, she had only one excuse to plead, and she pled it so often and with such insistence that it seemed easier to give in than to continue the argument. “Yes, but he’s lame!” came back automatically as the answer to every remonstrance, till Stanor shrugged his shoulders and sat down to write his letter.
Pixie was indeed, as the family had it, “the soft-heartedest creature!” He loved her for it, but none the less depression seized him anew. Now there would be the Runkle to tackle! More arguments! More objections! A fellow ought to be jolly happy when he was married, to make up for all the fuss and agitation which went before...
Stanor’s letter of announcement was short and to the point, for he was not in the mood to lapse into sentiment. By return of post came the Runkle’s reply, short also, and non-committal—nothing more, in fact, than the announcement that he preferred to discuss the matter in person, and would the following day arrive at a certain hotel, where he bade his nephew meet him. Stanor therefore made his excuses to his hostess, packed his bag, and dispatched a letter of explanation to his fiancée, unconscious of the fact that she was at that very hour receiving information first hand.
It came about in the most natural, and simple fashion. As Pixie, roaming the grounds bareheaded to gather a bouquet of wild flowers to present to the little invalid, emerged suddenly upon the drive, she found a tall, grey-coated stranger leaning against a tree in an attitude expressive of collapse. He was very tall, and very thin; the framework of his shoulders was high and broad, but from them the coat seemed to flap around a mere skeleton of a frame. His hair was dark, his complexion pale, and leaning back with closed eyes he looked so alarmingly ill and spent, that, dropping the flowers to the ground, Pixie leaped forward to the rescue.
“You’re ill. ... Let me help! There’s a seat close by. ... Lean on me!”
The stranger opened his eyes, and Pixie started as most people did start when they first looked into Stephen Glynn’s eyes, which were of that deep, intense blue which is romantically dubbed purple and fringed with dark lashes, which added still further to their depth. They were sad eyes, tired eyes, eyes of an exceeding and pitiful beauty, eloquent of suffering and repression. They looked out under dark, level brows, and with their intense earnestness of expression flooded the thin face with life. As she met their gaze Pixie drew a quick, gasping breath of surprise.
The stranger in his turn looked surprised and startled; he bent his head in involuntary salute, and glanced down at the tiny arm offered for his support. Six foot two he stood in his stockinged feet, and there was this scrap of a girl offering her little doll-like arm for support! His lips twitched, and Pixie pounced on the meaning with her usual agility.
“But I’m wiry,” she announced proudly. “You wouldn’t believe my strength till you try it. Just for a few yards. ... Round the corner by the oak-tree. Please!”
“You are too kind. I am not ill, but the walk from the station is very steep and I found it tiring, that’s all. I shall be glad to rest for a moment, but I assure you no help is needed.”
He took a step forward as he spoke, a quick, halting step, and Pixie looking on, exclaimed sharply—
“The Runkle! Stanor’s Runkle! It is You!”
The stranger looked down sharply, his dark brows puckering in astonishment.
“I am Stephen Glynn—‘The Runkle,’ as my nephew is pleased to call me. But you—you cannot be—”
Pixie nodded vehemently.
“I am!—Pixie O’Shaughnessy. Going to be your niece. I made Stanor write to tell you.—”
They seated themselves on the bench under the oak-tree, and turning, faced each other in a long, curious silence, during which each face assumed a puzzled expression.
“But you are younger than I expected!” cried Pixie.
“That is exactly what I was on the point of saying to you,” returned Mr Glynn.
“And yet we know exactly how old we both are—twenty and thirty-five!” Pixie continued volubly. “But you know how it is with young men—they have no patience to explain! You’d be amused if you could see the image I’d made of you in my own mind. I expect ’twas the same with yourself?”
“It was,” agreed Mr Glynn, and for a moment imagined that his disappointment was his own secret—only for a moment, however, then Pixie tilted her head at him with a sideways nod of comprehension.
“Knowing, of course, that I was a sister of the beautiful Mrs Hilliard! No wonder you are disappointed!” The eyes smiled sympathy at him, and the wide lips parted in the friendliest of smiles. “You’ll like me better when you know me!”
“I—I am quite sure,” stammered Mr Glynn, and then drew himself up suddenly, as if doubtful if agreement were altogether polite under the circumstances. Once more his lips twitched, and as their eyes met he and Pixie collapsed together into an irresistible laugh. He laughed well, a rare and charming accomplishment, and Pixie regarded him with benign approval.
“Quite romantic, isn’t it? The noble kinsman journeying in state to demand the hand of the charming maid, falls ill of the perils of the way, and encounters a simple cottage maid gathering flowers, who succours the stranger in distress. Their identity is then revealed. ... I do love romances!” cried Pixie gushingly. “And it’s much nicer having an interview out here than in a stuffy room ... Please, Mr Kinsman—begin!”
He frowned, bit at his under lip, and moved restlessly on the seat, glancing once and again at the girl’s bright, unclouded face.
“I’m afraid,” he began slowly, “that the matter is not altogether as simple as you suppose. Stanor is not in a position to marry without my consent. I think he has not sufficiently appreciated this fact. If he had consulted me in the first instance I should have endeavoured to prevent—”
She turned her eyes upon him like a frightened child. There was no trace of anger, nor wounded pride—those he could have faced with ease—but the simple shock of the young face smote on his heart.
“I had not seen you, remember!” he cried quickly. “My decision had no personal element. I object at this stage to Stanor becoming engaged to—anybody. He has, no doubt, explained to you our relationship. His parents being dead, I made myself responsible for his training. He may have explained to you also my wish that for a few years he should be free to enjoy his youth without any sense of responsibility?”
Pixie nodded gravely.
“He has. I understood. You had missed those years yourself, and knew they could never come back, so you gave them to him as a gift—young, happy years without a care, that he could treasure up in his mind and remember all his life. ’Twas a big gift! Stanor, and I are grateful to you—”
Stephen Glynn looked at her: a long, thoughtful glance. The programme which he had mapped out for his nephew had been unusual enough to attract much notice. He had been alternately annoyed and amused by the criticism of his neighbours, all of whom seemed incapable of understanding his real motives. It seemed a strange thing that it should be reserved for this slip of a girl to see into his inmost heart. He was touched and impressed, but that “Stanor and I” hardened him to his task.
“Thank you. You do understand. At the moment Stanor may perhaps be inclined to question the wisdom of my programme, but I think in after years he will, as you say, look back. The fact remains, however, that he has not yet tackled the real business of life. He has had, with my concurrence, plenty of change and variety, which I believe in the end will prove of service in his life’s work, and he has stood the test. Many young fellows of his age would have abused their opportunities. He has not done so. My only disappointment has been that he has developed no definite taste, but has been content to flit from one fancy to the next, always carried away by the latest novelty on the horizon.”
Once again she tilted her head and scanned him with her wide, clear eyes.
“You mean Me?” she said quickly. “I’m the ‘Latest Novelty!’ You mean that he’ll change about me, too? Isn’t that what you mean?”
“My dear—Miss O’Shaughnessy,” (incredible though it appeared, Stephen had been on the verge of saying “Pixie,” pure and simple) “you leap too hastily to conclusions. I am afraid I must appear an odious person! Believe me, I had no intention of rushing into the very heart of this matter as we have done. My plan was to call upon your sister and explain to her my position—”
“’Tis not my sister’s business, ’tis mine,” interrupted Pixie firmly. “And it would be a waste of time talking to her, for she’d agree with every word you said. They don’t want me to be engaged. They think I’m too young. If you have anything to say, say it to Me. I’m the person to be convinced.”
She settled herself more comfortably as she spoke, turning towards him with one arm resting on the back of the bench, and her head leaning against the upturned hand. The sun shone on her face through the flickering branches. No, she was not pretty; not in the least the sort of girl Stanor was accustomed to fancy. Yet there was something extraordinarily attractive about the little face, with its clear eyes, its wide, generous mouth, its vivacity of expression. Already, after a bare ten minutes’ acquaintance, Stephen Glynn so shrank from the prospect of hurting Pixie O’Shaughnessy that it required an effort to keep an unflinching front.
“I agree with your people,” he said resolutely, “that you and Stanor are too young, and that this matter has been settled too hastily. Apart from that, I should object to any engagement until he has proved his ability to work for a wife. I have a position in view for him in a large mercantile house in New York. After a couple of years’ experience there he would come back to the London house, and, if his work justified it, I am prepared to buy him a partnership in the firm. He would then be his own master, free to do as he chose, but for these two years he must be free, with no other responsibility than this work.”
“You think,” queried Pixie slowly, “that I should interfere ... that he would do his work better without me?”
“It’s not a question of thinking, Miss O’Shaughnessy. I am not content to think. I want to make sure that Stanor will settle seriously to work and keep in the same mind. He is a good fellow, a dear fellow, but, hitherto at least, he has not been stable.”
“He has never been engaged before?”
“Not actually. I have been forewarned in time to prevent matters reaching that length. Twice over—”
A small hand waved imperiously for silence.
“I don’t think,” said Pixie sternly, “that you have any right to tell me things like that. If Stanor wants me to know, he can tell me himself. It’s his affair. I am not at all curious.” She drew a fluttering breath, and stared down at the ground, and a silence followed during which Stephen was denouncing himself as a hard-hearted tyrant, when suddenly a minute voice spoke in his ear—
“Were they—pretty?”
It was impossible to resist the smile which twitched at his lips. Unpleasant as was the nature of his errand, he, the most unsmiling of men, had already twice over been moved to merriment. Stephen was reflecting on the incongruity of the fact, when Pixie again answered his unspoken retort.
“It’s not curiosity, it’s interest. Quite a different thing! And even if they were, it’s much more serious when a man cares for a girl for her—er—mental attractions, because they go on getting better, instead of fading away like a pretty face. It’s very difficult to know what is right. ... I’ve promised Stanor, and he has promised me, and it seems a poor way of showing that you know your own mind, to break your word at the beginning!”
“I don’t ask you to break your word, Miss O’Shaughnessy; only to hold it in abeyance. I am speaking in Stanor’s interests, which we have equally at heart. I know his character—forgive me!—better than you can do, and I am asking you to help me in arranging a probation which I know to be wise under the circumstances. Let him go to New York a free man; let him work and show his mettle, and at the end of two years, if you are both of the same mind, I will give you every help in my power: but meantime there must be no engagement, no tie, no regular correspondence. You must both be perfectly free. I am sorry to appear hard-hearted, but these are my conditions, and I can’t see my way to alter them.”
“Well—why not?” cried Pixie unexpectedly. “What’s two years? They’ll pass in no time. And men hate writing. Stanor will be relieved not to have to bother about the mails. He can do without letters. He will know that I am waiting.” She held out her hand with a sudden, radiant smile. “And you will be pleased! It is the least we can do to consider your wishes. If I persuade Stanor—if I send him away alone to work,” the small fingers tightened ingratiatingly over his, “you will like me, won’t you? You will think of me as a real niece?”
Stephen Glynn’s deep blue eyes stared deeply into hers. He did not deliberately intend to put his thoughts into speech; if he had given himself a moment to think he would certainly not have done so, but so strong was the mental conviction that the words seemed to form themselves without his volition.
“You don’t love him! You could not face a separation so easily if you loved him as you should...”
For the first time a flash of real anger showed itself on Pixie’s face. Her features hardened; the child disappeared and he caught a glimpse of the woman that was to be.
“What right have you to say that?” she asked deeply. “You prove to me that it would be for Stanor’s good to wait, and then say I cannot love him because I agree! You love him, yet you can hurt him and bring him disappointment when you feel it is right. I understood that, so I was not angry, but in return you might understand me!”
“Forgive me!” cried Stephen. “I should not have said it. You deserved a better return for your kindness. I suppose I must seem very illogical, but it did not occur to me that the two cases were on a parallel. The love of a fiancée is not as a rule as well balanced as that of an uncle, Miss O’Shaughnessy!”
“It ought to be,” asserted Pixie. “It ought to be everything that another love is, and more! A man’s future wife ought to be the person of all others to be reasonable, and unselfish, and logical where he is concerned, even if it means separation for a dozen years.”
No answer. Stephen gazed blankly into space as if unconscious of her words.
“Oughtn’t she?”
“Er—theoretically, Miss O’Shaughnessy, she ought!”
“Very well, then. I am proud that I am, and so ought you to be, too. ... It’s strange how I’m misunderstood! My family say the same thing—Esmeralda, Geoffrey, Stanor himself, and it hurts, for no one before has ever doubted if I could love...” She was silent for a minute, twisting her fingers together in restless fashion, then looking suddenly into his face she asked: “What do you know about it to be so sure? Have you ever been in love?”
Stephen flushed.
“Never. No. I was— My accident cut me off from all such things.”
“What a pity! She would have helped you through.” She smiled into his eyes with a beautiful sweetness. “Well, Mr Glynn, if I am too reasonable to please you, perhaps Stanor will make up for it. You mayn’t find it so easy to influence him.”
“I’m sure of that. I look forward to a stiff time, but if you are on my side we shall bring him round. Now perhaps I had better continue my way to the house and see Mrs Hilliard. This is pre-eminently your business, as you say, but still—”
“She’ll expect it! Yes—” Pixie rose to her feet with an air of depression—“and she’ll crow! They’ll all crow! It’s what they wanted, and when you come and lay down an ultimatum, they’ll rejoice and triumph.” Her small face assumed an aspect of acute dejection. “That’s the worst of being the youngest. ... It’s a trying thing when your family insist on sitting in committees about your own affairs, when you understand them so much better yourself. I’m not even supposed to understand the feelings of my own heart without a sister to translate them for me. Shouldn’t you think, now, a girl of twenty—nearly twenty-one—is old enough to know that?”
“I don’t think it is a foregone conclusion. More things than years go to the formation of character, Miss O’Shaughnessy, and if you will allow me to say so, you seem to me very young for your age.”
“I always was,” sighed Pixie sadly. “They’ve said that all my life. Some people always are young, and some are old. There was a girl at school, middle-aged at thirteen, poor creature, and had been from her birth. My sister Bridgie will never be more than seventeen if she lives to a hundred, and I mean myself to stick at twenty. It doesn’t mean trying to look younger than you are, or being ashamed of your age, and silly, and frivolous: it’s just keeping your heart young!”
The man, who was young in years and old in heart, looked down at the girl with a very sad smile. She spoke as if it were such an easy thing to do: he knew by bitter experience that under such circumstances as his own it was of all tasks the most difficult. To stand aside during the best years; to see the tide of life rush by, and have no part in the great enterprise; and then to regain his powers when youth had passed, and the keen savour of youth had died down into a dull indifference; to be dependent for love on the careless affection of a lad,—how was it possible for a man to keep his heart warm in such circumstances as these?
“Life has been kind to you,” he answered dryly, and Pixie flung him a quick retort—
“I have been kind to it! If I’d chosen I might have found it hard enough. We were always poor. I never remember a time when I hadn’t to pretend and make up, because it was impossible to get what I wanted. Then I was sent to school, and I hated going, and my father died when I was away, and they told me the news with not a soul belonging to me anywhere near, and I loved my father far more than other girls love theirs! ... Then we left Knock. ... If you’d lived in a castle, and gone to a villa in a street, with a parlour in front and a dining-room behind looking out on the kitchen wall, you wouldn’t talk about life being kind—!
“I was in France for years being educated, and not able to repine because it was a friend and she’d taken me cheaply. Perhaps you’d say that was luck, and an advantage, and it was, but all the same it’s hard on a young thing to have to enjoy herself in a foreign language, and spend the holidays with a maiden lady and a snuffy old Père, because there wasn’t enough money to come home. Yes,” concluded Pixie, with a smirk of satisfaction, “I’ve had my trials, and now I’m to be crossed in love, and have my young lover rent from me. ... You couldn’t have the audacity to call life easy after that!”
Stephen tried valiantly to look sympathetic, but it was useless; he was obliged to smile, and Pixie smiled with him, adding cheerily—
“Anyway, it’s living! ... And I do love it when things happen. It’s so dreadfully interesting to be alive.”
The man who was old before his time looked down upon the girl with a wistful glance. Small as she was, insignificant as she had appeared at first sight, he had never seen any one more intensely, vitally alive. Her tiny feet skimmed the ground, her tiny head reared itself jauntily on the slender neck, the brilliance of her smile, the embracing kindliness of her glance more than compensated for the plainness of her features. Like most people who made the acquaintance of Pixie O’Shaughnessy, Stephen Glynn was already beginning to fall under her spell and marvel at the blindness of his first impression. She was not plain; she was not insignificant; she was, on the contrary, unusually fascinating and attractive!
“But she does not love him,” Stephen repeated to himself. “She does not know what love means. When she does—when she has grown into a woman, and understands—what a wife, what a companion she will make!”