Pixie’s prophecy that her relatives would “crow” on hearing Mr Glynn’s ultimatum, was fulfilled in spirit, if not in letter.
Geoffrey and Joan Hilliard assumed their most staid and dignified airs for the important interview, referred to “my sister Patricia” with a deference worthy of a royal princess, and would have Stanor’s guardian to understand that the man was not born who was worthy to be her spouse; all the same, as mortal young men went, they had nothing to say against Stanor Vaughan, and if time proved him to be in earnest, both in love and work, they would be graciously pleased to welcome him into the family. Then, the business part of the interview being ended, the ambassador was invited to stay to lunch, and Esmeralda swept from the room, leaving the two men to a less formal colloquy over their cigarettes.
“It’s a comfort to find that we think alike on this matter,” began Geoffrey, holding out a match for his guest’s benefit. “I have felt rather guilty about it, for Pixie was left too much to herself during our little fellow’s illness. She was in trouble herself, poor little soul, and, being lonely, was no doubt unduly susceptible to sympathy. Neither my wife nor I suspected any attachment before the night of the boy’s accident, and if things had gone on in a normal way I doubt if the engagement would have come off. Pixie is very young; we have hardly accustomed ourselves to the idea that she is grown-up. This is the first visit she had paid to us by herself, so that we feel responsible.”
“You are uncertain of her feelings? I had the same doubt myself, but when I said as much Miss O’Shaughnessy was indignant. She insists that she does love the boy.”
Geoffrey Hilliard laughed.
“It would be difficult to find the person whom Pixie does not love. He is handsome, and he was kind to her when she was lonely. She loves him as she loves a dozen other friends. But—”
“But!” repeated Stephen Glynn eloquently.
He who had missed the greatest of earthly gifts yet realised enough of its mystery to join in that eloquent protest. He smoked in silence for several moments, while his thoughts wandered backwards.
“She would have helped you through!”
The echo of those words rang in his ears; he heard again the musical tone of the soft Irish voice, saw again the sweet, deep glance. Strange that those words had in the very moment of utterance uprooted the conviction of years! Lying prisoner on his couch, he had been thankful, in a grim, embittered fashion which had belied the true meaning of the word, that love had not entered into his life. It would have been but another cross to bear, since no woman could be expected to be faithful to a maimed and querulous invalid. Now in a lightning flash he realised that there were women—this Irish Pixie, for example—whose love could triumphantly overcome such an ordeal. She would have “helped him through” and, supported and cheered by her influence, his recovery would doubtless have been far more speedy. He straightened himself, and said quickly—
“Miss O’Shaughnessy would make a charming wife. For Stanor’s sake I could not wish anything better than that she may be ready to fulfil her promise at the end of the two years.”
“There’s no doubt about that,” said Geoffrey gravely. “She will be ready. There’s more than a grain of obstinacy in Pixie’s nature—very amiable obstinacy, no doubt, but it may be just as mischievous on such occasions as the present. She has given her word and she’ll stick to it, even if she recognises that she has made a mistake. We may talk, but it will have no effect. Unless your nephew himself releases her, she will feel as much bound as if they had been married in Westminster Abbey. It’s the way she’s made—the most faithful little creature under the sun! It will be our duty to protect her against herself, by making the young fellow understand that for her sake, almost more than his own, he must be honest, and not allow a mistaken sense of honour to urge him to repeat his proposal if his heart is not in it. He could make Pixie his wife, but he could never make her happy. The most cruel fate that could happen to that little soul would be to be married to a man who did not love her absolutely!”
Stephen Glynn nodded, his lips pressed together in grim determination.
“He shall understand. If I know Stanor, there will be no difficulty, in persuading him. He is a good lad, but it is not in him to sacrifice himself. I have been so anxious to secure him an unclouded youth that he is hardly to be blamed for putting his own interests in the foreground.”
“It’s a fault that many of us suffer from in the early twenties,” said Geoffrey, lightly. He thought the conversation had lasted long enough, and was glad when the sound of the gong came as an interruption and he could escort his guest to the dining-room, where the two ladies were already waiting.
Luncheon was a cheerful meal despite the somewhat difficult position of the diners, and Stephen Glynn felt the pang of the lonely as he absorbed the atmosphere of love and sympathy. The beautiful hostess looked tired and worn, but her eyes brightened as she looked at her husband, and, in a quiet, unostentatious fashion, he watched incessantly over her comfort. It was easy to see that the trial through which this husband and wife had passed had but riveted the bond between them and brought them into closest sympathy, while the little sister comported herself with a brisk cheeriness which was as far as possible removed from the attitude of the proverbial damsel crossed in love. The time passed so pleasantly that the visitor was unfeignedly sorry when it was time to make his farewells.
Pixie ran upstairs for the small son and heir, who had by now returned home, and in her absence Stephen exchanged a few last words with Esmeralda.
“I am immensely relieved and thankful that you and your husband feel with me in this matter. And Miss O’Shaughnessy has been wonderfully forgiving! She does not appear to bear me any rancour.”
Esmeralda gave a short, impatient laugh.
“Rancour! Pixie! You know very little of my sister, Mr Glynn, to suggest such a possibility. She is incapable of rancour!”
Pixie returned at this moment, leading Geoff by the hand, and when the great car glided up to the door, she and the boy went out together to see the last of the departing guest. Stephen stepped haltingly into the car, and leaned over the side to wave his own farewells. Pixie smiled, and waved in reply, and the sun shone down on her uncovered face. Stephen would have been thankful if he could have carried away that picture as a last impression, but as the car moved slowly from the door, she stepped back into the shadow of the porch, and he caught a last glimpse of her standing there, gazing after him with a grave, fixed gaze.
Stephen Glynn’s dreaded interview with his nephew was a typical example of the unexpectedness of events, for instead of the indignant opposition which he had feared, his proposition was listened to in silence, and accepted with an alacrity, which was almost more disconcerting than revolt.
In truth Stanor saw in the proposal an escape from what had proved a disappointing and humiliating position. His pride had been hurt by the attitude of Pixie’s relatives, and he could not imagine himself visiting at their houses with any degree of enjoyment. A dragging engagement in England would therefore be a trying experience to all concerned, and it seemed a very good way out of the difficulty to pass the time of waiting abroad.
From his own point of view, moreover, he was relieved not to begin his business life in London, where so far he had been free to pursue his pleasures only. To be cooped up in a dull city office, while but a mile or two away his friends were taking part in the social functions of the season, would be an exasperating experience, whereas in New York he would be troubled by no such comparisons, but would find much to enjoy in the novelty of his surroundings. Two years would soon pass, and at the end he would come home to an assured position, marry Pixie, and live happily ever after.
He sat gazing thoughtfully into space, the fingers of his right hand slowly stroking his chin, a picture of handsome, young manhood, while the deep blue eyes of Stephen Glynn watched him intently from across the room. A long minute of silence; then the two pairs of eyes met, and Stanor found himself flushing with a discomfort as acute as mysterious. He straightened himself, and put a hasty question—
“What does Pixie say?”
“Miss O’Shaughnessy was—” Stephen hesitated over the word—“she seemed to think that my wishes should have weight. She will consent to anything that seems for your good. She said that two years would quickly pass.”
Stanor frowned. The thought had passed through his own brain, but no man could approve of such sentiments on the part of a fiancée. There was an edge of irritation in his voice—
“Of course your wishes should be considered. I don’t need any one to teach me that. I am quite willing to go to America and do my best. I shall be glad of the change, but it’s nonsense to talk of not being bound. We are bound! We need not correspond regularly, if you make a point of that. I don’t think much of letters in any case. Writing once a week, or once in two or three months, can make no difference. There’s only one thing that counts!”
Stephen assented gravely.
“Just so. From what I have seen of Miss O’Shaughnessy, I realise that her only hope of happiness is to marry a man who can give her a whole-hearted love.”
Stanor’s glance held a mingling of surprise and displeasure—surprise that the Runkle should offer any opinion at all on matters sentimental; displeasure, that any one should dictate to him concerning Pixie’s welfare. He switched the conversation back to more practical matters.
“When shall I start? The sooner the better. If the post is open there is no object in wasting time.” His face lit up with sudden animation. “I say! Could we manage it in a fortnight, should you think? Miss Ward is sailing by the ‘Louisiana,’ and it would be topping if I could go by the same boat. I might wire to-day about a berth.”
“Who is Miss Ward?”
“Honor Ward—an American. Awfully jolly! No end of an heiress! I’ve met her a good deal this year, and she was staying at the Hilliards’ at the time of the accident. Awfully fond of Pixie, and a real good sort!” He laughed shortly.—“We ought to go out together, for we are mentally in the same boat. She had intended to stay over the summer, but ... her romance has gone wrong too!”
“Indeed!”
Stephen was not interested in Miss Ward’s romance, but he made no objection to the sending of a wire to the Liverpool office of the steamship company, and before evening the berth was secured and Stanor’s departure definitely dated.
“I’ll spend the rest of the time with Pixie,” was Stanor’s first determination, but each hour that passed brought with it a recollection of some new duty which must needs be performed. One cannot leave one’s native land, even for a couple of years, without a goodly amount of preparation and leave-taking, and the time allotted to Pixie dwindled down to a few hasty visits of a few hours’ duration, when the lovers sat together in the peacock walk, and talked, and built castles in the air, and laughed, and sighed, and occasionally indulged in a little, mild sparring, as very youthful lovers are apt to do.
“I must say you are uncommonly complacent about my going! A fellow hardly expects the girl he’s engaged to, to be in such uproarious spirits just on the eve of their separation,” Stanor would grumble suddenly at the end of one of his fiancée’s mirthful sallies, whereupon Pixie, her vanity hurt by his want of appreciation, would snap out a quick retort.
“If I’m sad you want me to be glad, and if I’m glad you’re annoyed that I’m not sad! There’s no pleasing you! You ought to be thankful that I’m so strong and self-controlled. ... Would it make it easier; if I were hanging round your neck in hysterics?”
“Oh, bar hysterics! But a tear or two now and then... Suppose it was Bridgie who was going instead of me?—would you be as strong and self-controlled?”
“If Bridgie were going I’d ... I’d jump—” In the midst of her passionate declaration Pixie drew herself up, shot a frightened glance, and concluded lamely, “I’d ... be very much distressed!”
“That’s not what you were going to say. You were going to say that you’d jump into the water and swim after her, or some such nonsense. You can be perfectly cool and calm about my going, but when it comes to Bridgie—”
“If it’ll please you better, I’ll begin to howl this minute! I don’t often, but when I do, it seems as if I could never stop. I thought,” Pixie added reproachfully, “when a girl was engaged the man thought her perfect, and everything she did, and she sat listening while he sang her praises from morn to night. But you find fault—”
“I don’t call it finding fault to wish you would show more feeling! It’s the best sort of compliment, if you could only see it.”
“I like my compliments undiluted, not wrapped up in reproaches, like powder in jam. Besides, you’re fairly complacent yourself! I heard you telling Geoffrey that you expected to have a real good time.”
“And suppose I did? What about that? Would you prefer me to be lonely, and miserable?”
“Oh dear!” cried Pixie poignantly; “we’re quarrelling! Whose fault was it? Was it mine? I’m sorry, Stanor. Don’t let’s quarrel! I want you to be happy. Could I love you if I didn’t do that? I want it more than anything else. Honor is coming to-morrow, and I shall ask her to look after you for me. She knows so many people, and is so rich that she has the power to help. She will be glad to have you so near. Why is she going home so soon, Stanor? I thought—”
“So did we all, but it’s fallen through somehow. I met Carr in town looking the picture of woe, but, naturally, he didn’t vouchsafe any explanation. Honor will probably unburden herself to you to-morrow.”
“She will. If she doesn’t I shall ask her,” said Pixie calmly. “I’m crossed in love myself, so I can understand. It’s no use trying to sympathise till you’ve had a taste of the trouble yourself. Has it ever occurred to you to notice the mad ways most people set about sympathising? Sticking needles all over you while they’re trying to be kind. Sympathising is an art, you know, and you have to adapt it to each person. Some like a little and some like a lot, and some like cheering up, and others want you to cry with them and make the worst of everything, and then it’s off their minds and they perk up. Bridgie and I used to think sometimes of hiring ourselves out as professional sympathisers, for there seems such a lack of people who can do it properly.”
“Suppose you give me a demonstration now! You haven’t been too generous in that respect, Pixie.”
Pixie looked at him, her head on one side, her eyes very intent and serious.
“You don’t need it,” she said simply, and Stanor looked hurt and discomfited, and cast about in his mind for a convincing retort which should prove beyond doubt the pathos of his position, failed to find it, and acknowledged unwillingly to himself that as a matter of fact he was very well satisfied with the way in which things were going. Pixie was right—she usually was right; it might, perhaps, be more agreeable if on occasions she could be judiciously blind! He adopted the pained and dignified air which experience had taught him was the surest method of softening Pixie’s heart, and in less than a minute she was hanging on his arm and contradicting all her former statements.
Stanor was very much in love as he travelled back to town that day, and the two years of waiting seemed unbearably long. Perhaps, if he got on unusually well, the Runkle might be induced to shorten the probation. He would sound him at the end of the first year.
The next day Honor Ward made a farewell visit to the Hall, and took lunch with the family in the panelled dining-room, where she had joined in many merry gatherings a few weeks before. Pixie saw the brown eyes flash a quick glance at the place which had been allotted to Robert Carr, but except for that glance there was no sign of anything unusual in either looks or manner. Honor was as neat, as composed, as assured in manner as in her happiest moments, and the flow of her conversation was in no wise moderated. Her hurried departure was explained by a casual “I guessed I’d better,” which Mr and Mrs Hilliard accepted as sufficient reason for a girl who had no ties, and more money than she knew how to use. Even Pixie’s lynx-eyes failed to descry any sign of heart-break. But when the meal was over and the two girls retired upstairs for a private chat, Honor’s jaunty manners fell from her like a cloak, and she crouched in a corner of the sofa, looking suddenly tired and worn. For the moment, however, it was not of her own affairs that she elected to speak.
“Pat-ricia,” she began suddenly, turning her honey-coloured eyes on her friend’s face with a penetrating gaze, “I guess this is about the last real talk you and I are going to get for a good long spell. There’s no time for fluttering round the point. What I’ve got in my mind I’m going to say! What in the land made you get engaged to Stanor Vaughan?”
“Because he asked me, of course!” replied Pixie readily, and the American girl gave a shrug of impatience.
“If another man had asked you, then, it would have been just the same. You would have accepted him for, the same reason!”
Pixie’s head reared proudly; her eyes sent out a flash.
“That’s horrid, and you meant it to be! I shan’t answer your questions if you’re going to be rude.”
“I’m not rude, Patricia O’Shaughnessy. You’re a real sweet girl, and I want you should be as happy as you deserve, which you certainly won’t be if you don’t take the trouble to understand your own heart. What’s all this nonsense about being bound and not bound, and waiting for two years without writing, he on one side of the ocean, and you on another? I can understand an old uncle proposing it—it’s just the sort of scheme an old uncle would propose—but it won’t work out, Patricia, you take my word for that!”
“Thank you, my dear, I prefer to take my own; and he’s not old. He has the most beautiful eyes you ever beheld. What do you suppose Stanor would say if he knew you were talking to me like this?”
“I’m not saying a word against Stanor! Who could say a word against such an elegant creature? He’s been a good friend to me, and he’s going to make a first-rate man when he gets to work, and has something to think about besides his beautiful self. America’ll knock the nonsense out of him. At the end of two years, it will be another man who comes home, a man instead of a boy, just as you will probably be a woman instead of a girl. It’s the most critical time in life, when that change is taking place, and you’d better believe I know what I’m talking about. If I were in your place I’d move mountains, Patricia, if mountains had to be moved, but I’d make sure that the man I loved didn’t go through it apart from me!”
“But if the mountain happened to be an uncle, and the uncle had done everything, and was willing to go on doing everything, and was older and wiser, and knew better than you? Oh, dearie me,” concluded Pixie impatiently, “everybody seems against me! I’m lectured and thwarted on every side, I’ve not been brought up to it, and it’s most depressing. And it’s not a bit of good, either; it’s my own life, and I shall do as I like. And what about yourself, me dear? You are very brave about lecturing me. Suppose I take a turn! Why are you going back to America and leaving Robert Carr behind? What have you been doing to him?”
“I asked him to marry me, and he refused.”
Pixie sat stunned with surprise and consternation. Honor’s voice had been flat and level as usual, not a break or quiver had broken its flow, but there was a pallor round the lips, a sudden sharpening of the features, which spoke eloquently enough, and smote the hearer to the heart.
“Oh, me dear, forgive me!” she cried deeply. “I’m ashamed. Don’t say any more. I’d no right to ask.”
“I meant to tell you. I’d have told you in any case. You guessed how it was when we were here. You can’t be in love like that and not show it.—I thought of him all day; I dreamt of him all night ... when he was out of the room I was wretched; when he came in I knew it by instinct; before I could see him I knew it! In a crowded room I could hear every word he said, see every movement. ... When I was sitting alone, and heard his voice in the distance, my heart leapt—it made me quite faint. I loved him, Pixie!”
Pixie sat staring with startled gaze. She did not speak, and for a moment it seemed that her thoughts had wandered from the story on hand, for her eyes had an inward look, as though she were puzzling out a problem which concerned herself alone. She started slightly as Honor again began to speak, and straightened herself with a quick air of attention.
“Sometimes I thought he loved me too, but he was not the sort of man who would choose to marry an heiress. My money stood between us. So I ... I tried to make it easier by showing him ... how I felt. When we went back to London he said good-bye, and refused my invitations, but I met him by accident, and,” she straightened herself with a gesture of pride, “I am not ashamed of what I did. It would have been folly to sacrifice happiness for the sake of a convention ... I asked him—”
“And?”
“He cared!” Honor said softly. “I had my hour, Pixie, but it was only an hour, for at the end we got to business, and that wrecked it all. I’ve told you about my factory. Over here in England, when people have looked at me through monocles, there have been times when I’ve been ashamed of pickles, but at home I’m proud! Father started as a working lad, and built up that great business, brick by brick. Three thousand ‘hands’ are employed in the factory, but they were never ‘hands’ to him, Patricia, they were souls! He’d been a working man himself, and there was not one thing in their lives he didn’t know and understand. One of the first things I can remember, right away back in my childhood, is being taken to a window to see those men stream past, and being told they were my friends and that I was to take care of them. He had no airs, my pappa; he never gave himself frills, or pretended to be anything different from what he was—there was only one thing he was proud of, and that was that his men were the happiest and most contented in the States. When he died he left me more than his money, he left me his men!”
Honor paused, her eyes bright with suppressed feeling, and Pixie, keen as ever to appreciate an emotional situation, drew a fluttering breath.
“Yes, yes! How beautiful! How fine! All those lives ... Honor, aren’t you proud?”
“I’ve told you before, my dear. The best part of me is proud and glad, but we’re pretty complex creatures, and I guess a big duty is bound to come up against a pleasure now and then. At the moment I was speaking of, it was one man against three thousand, and the one man weighed down the scale.”
“But ... but I don’t understand.” Pixie puckered her brows in bewilderment. “Why couldn’t you have both?”
“I thought I could, Patricia. I calculated, as my work was full-fledged, and his had hardly begun, that he would be willing to come over with me. It’s a pretty stiff proposition for a woman to run a big show like that, and I’d have been glad of help. He allowed I’d have to sell up and keep house for him in England, and make a splash among the big-wigs to help him in his career. He put it as politely as he knew how, but he made me understand that it was beneath his dignity to live in America and work in pickles, and he guessed if I sold out I could find a buyer who would look after the men as well as or better than I did myself. So—” she waved her small white hands—“there we were! He wouldn’t, and I couldn’t! That’s the truth, Patricia. I could not! I don’t dispute that another person might not manage as well as I, that’s not the question. It’s my work, it’s my responsibility; those men were left to me, and I can’t desert. So the dream’s over, my dear, and I’m going back to real hard life.”
Pixie nodded, the big tears standing in her eyes.
“I should have done the same. He didn’t love you enough.”
Honor gave a quivering laugh.
“He said the same of me. Couldn’t seem to see any difference between the two ‘give-ups’; but there is a difference, Patricia. Well, my dear, that’s the end of it. We said good-bye, and there’s no reason why we should meet again. ... Our lives lie in different places, and it’s no use trying to join them.”
“Honor, dear, are you very unhappy?”
Honor’s neat little features puckered in a grimace.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I feel exactly gay, Patricia, but don’t you worry about me. I’ll come up smiling. You wouldn’t have me pine for the sake of a man who wouldn’t have me when he got the chance? I guess Honor P Ward has too much grit for that!”
Pixie nodded slowly.
“But you mustn’t be too hard on him, Honor—It’s natural to want to live in one’s own country, and he loves his work just as you do yours. He’ll be a judge some day—chins like that always do succeed—and ambition means so much to a man. You might have been pleased for your own sake; but would you have thought more of him as a man if he’d thrown it all up and lived on your pickles?”
Honor brought her eyebrows together in a frown.
“Now, Pixie O’Shaughnessy, don’t you go taking his part! I guess I’ve got about as much sense of justice as most, and in a few months’ time I’ll see the matter in its right light, but for the moment I’m injured, and I choose to feel injured; and I expect my friends to feel injured too. I’ve offered myself to an Englishman, and he’s refused to have me. There’s no getting; away from that fact, and it’s not a soothing experience for a free-born American. I’m through with Englishmen from this time forth!”
“Except Stanor! Be kind to Stanor. He’s always liked you, Honor, and he knows no one in America. Promise me to be kind to Stanor, and see him as often as you can!”
Honor’s brown eyes searched Pixie’s face with a curious glance. Then, rising from her chair, she crossed the room and kissed her warmly upon the cheek.
“Yes, I’ll look after him. I’ll do anything you want, and nothing you don’t want. You can trust me, my dear. Remember that, won’t you? You’re a real sweet thing, Patricia!”
Pixie laughed with characteristic complacence.
“Yes; but why especially at this moment? I always am, aren’t I? And how superfluous, me dear, to talk of trust? What have I got to trust?”
A fortnight later Geoffrey and Joan Hilliard, Stephen Glynn, and Pixie journeyed to Liverpool to see the last of the travellers. The little party stood together on the deck of the great vessel, surrounded on every side by surge and bustle, but silent themselves with the silence which falls when the heart is full. Travelling down to Liverpool they had been quite a merry party, and there had been no effort in keeping the conversation afloat; but the last moments sealed their lips. Honor drew a few yards apart with the elderly, kindly-faced maid who was her faithful attendant; Stephen Glynn and the Hilliards strolled away in an opposite direction. Pixie and her lover stood alone.
“Well, little girl... this is good-bye! Don’t forget me, darling...”
Pixie gulped.
“Take care of yourself, Stanor. Be happy! ... I want you to be happy.”
“I shall be wretched!” said Stanor hotly. “I’m leaving you. Oh! Pixie—” He broke off suddenly as the last bell sounded its warning note, and bent to kiss her lips; “Good-bye, my little love!”
The tears poured down Pixie’s face as she turned aside, and Geoffrey Hilliard led her tenderly down the gangway on to the landing-stage, where they stood together, tightly jammed in the crowd which watched the great steamer slowly move into the stream. Stanor and Honor were standing together leaning over the towering hull; their faces were pale, but they were smiling bravely, and Pixie wiped away her own tears and waved an answering hand. Esmeralda was holding her hand in a tender pressure; Geoffrey on one side, and Stephen Glynn on the other were regarding her with anxious solicitude. She smiled back with tremulous gratitude and gripped Esmeralda’s hand. Though Stanor was going, there was still much left, so many people to care and be kind.
The great vessel quivered and moved slowly forward. Honor drew a little white handkerchief from her bag and waved it in the air; on all sides the action was repeated, accompanied by cries of farewell mingled with sounds of distress. Pixie caught the sound of a sob, and craned forward to look in the face of a girl about her own age who stood on the other side of Stephen Glynn. She wore a small, close-fitting cap, which left her face fully exposed as it strained towards that moving deck, and on the small white features was printed a very extremity of anguish. She was not crying; her glazed eyes showed no trace of tears, she seemed unconscious of the deep sobs which issued from her lips; every nerve, every power was concentrated in the one effort to behold to the last possible moment one beloved face. Instinctively Pixie’s eyes followed those of the girl’s, and beheld a man’s face gazing back, haggard, a-quiver, almost contorted with suffering. The story was plain to read. They also were lovers—this man and this girl. They also were facing years of separation, and the moment of parting held for them the bitterness of death. Pixie O’Shaughnessy glanced from one to the other, and then thoughtfully, deliberately along the deck to the spot where stood her own lover, handsome Stanor, bending his head to overhear a remark from Honor, stroking his blonde moustache. He looked dejected, depressed; but compared with the depth of emotion on the other man’s face, such meagre expressions faded into nothingness. The moment during which she gazed at his face held for Pixie the significance of years; then once more her eyes returned to the girl by her side...
With every minute now the great vessel was slipping farther and farther from the stage; the faces of her passengers would soon cease to be distinguishable; in a few minutes they would be lost to sight, yet Pixie’s gaze remained riveted on the girl by her side, and on her own face was printed a mute dismay which one onlooker at least was quick to read.
“She understands!” Stephen Glynn said to himself. “That girl’s face has been an object lesson stronger than any words. She understands the difference.”
A moment later he met Pixie’s eyes, and realised afresh the truth of his diagnosis; but she drew herself up with a sort of defiance, and turned sharply aside.
In the train returning to town Pixie sat mute and pallid, and was waited upon assiduously by her sister and brother. To them it seemed natural enough that the poor child should collapse after the strain of parting. Only one person understood the deepest reason of her distress. He offered none of the conventional words of sympathy, and forebore to echo Esmeralda’s rosy pictures of the future. It brought another pang to Pixie’s sore heart to realise that he understood. “But I will be true,” she repeated to herself with insistent energy; “I will be true. I have given my word.” She felt very tired and spent as she lay back in the corner of her cushioned seat. On heart and brain was an unaccustomed weight; her very limbs felt heavy and inert, as if the motive power had failed. Virtue had gone out of her. At the sight of that anguished face, the years of Pixie’s untroubled girlhood had come to an end. Henceforth she was a woman, carrying her own burden. “But I will be true,” she repeated gallantly; “I will be true!”
A tall young man lay stretched upon a narrow bed which filled an entire wall of the one and only sitting-room in a diminutive London flat. On the wall opposite was a fireplace and a small sideboard; against the third wall stood a couple of upright chairs. In the centre of the room stood a table. A wicker arm-chair did duty for an invalid tray, and held a selection of pipes, books, and writing materials, also a bottle of medicine, and a plate of unappetising biscuits.
The young man took up one of the biscuits, nibbled a crumb from the edge, and aimed the remainder violently at a picture at the other end of the room. It hit, and the biscuit broke into pieces, but the glass remained intact, a result which seemed far from satisfactory to the onlooker. He fumbled impatiently for matches with which to light his pipe, touched the box with the tips of his outstretched fingers, and jerked it impatiently, whereupon it rolled on to the floor to a spot just a couple of inches beyond the utmost stretch of his arm. There it lay—obvious and aggravating, tempting, baffling, inaccessible. Pipe and tobacco lay at hand to supply the soothing which he so sorely needed at the end of a lonely, suffering day, and for the want of that box they might as well have been a mile away! A bell was within reach, but what use to ring that when no one was near to hear? The slovenly woman who called herself a working housekeeper found it necessary to sally forth each afternoon on long shopping expeditions, and during her absence her master had to fend for himself as best he might.
Dislocation of the knee was the young man’s malady, just a sharp, swift rush at cricket, a slip on the dry grass, and Pat O’Shaughnessy shuddered every time he thought of the hours and days which followed that fall. He had asked to be taken home, for the tiny flat was a new possession, and as such dear to his heart. And to his home they carried him, and there he had lain already for longer than he cared to think. He had progressed to the point when he had been able to dismiss an excellent but uncongenial nurse, and manage with an hour’s assistance morning and night; and what with reading the newspapers, smoking his pipe, and writing an occasional letter the first part of the day passed quickly enough.
Lunch was served at one o’clock on a papier-maché tray spread with a crumpled tray cloth. It was a tepid, tasteless, unappetising meal, for the working housekeeper knew neither how to work nor to cook, and Pat invariably sent it away almost untasted; yet every day he looked forward afresh to the advent of one o’clock and the appearance of the tray. It was something to happen, something to do, a change from the reading, of which he was already getting tired. But, after lunch, after he had wakened from the short siesta; and realised that it was not yet three o’clock, and that six, seven hours still remained to be lived through before he could reasonably hope to settle for the night—that was a dreary time indeed, and Pat, whose interests lay all outdoors, knew no means of lightening it.
For the first week of his confinement Pat had had a string of visitors. The members of his cricket team had appeared to express sympathy and encouragement; some of the men against whom he had been playing had also put in an appearance; “fellows” had come up from “the office,” but in the busy life of London a man who goes on being ill is apt to find himself left alone before many weeks have passed. There was only one man who never failed to put in an appearance at some hour of the day, and on that man’s coming Pat O’Shaughnessy this afternoon concentrated every power in his possession.
“They say if you wish hard enough you can make a fellow do what you like. If there’s any truth in it, Glynn ought to come along pretty soon. How am I going to lie here all afternoon and stare at those miserable matches? That wretched woman might be buying the town ... wish to goodness she’d fetch something fit to eat. If that doctor fellow won’t tell me to-morrow how much longer I have to lie here, I’ll—I’ll get up and walk, just to spite him!” Pat jerked defiantly and immediately gave a groan of pain. Not much chance of walking yet awhile!
He wriggled to the edge of the sofa, and made another unsuccessful stretch for the matchbox, but those baffling two inches refused to be mastered. Pat looked around in a desperate search for help, seized a biscuit, and aimed it carefully for the farther edge of the box, which, hit at the right angle, might perhaps have been twitched nearer to the sofa, but though Pat had considerable skill in the art of throwing, he had no luck this afternoon. Biscuit after biscuit was hurled with increasing violence, as temper suffered from the strain of failure, and each time the matchbox jumped still farther away, while another shower of biscuit crumbs bespattered the carpet. Then at last when the plate was emptied, and the last hope gone, deliverance came at the sound of the opening of the front door, and a quick, well-known whistle. Glynn! No one else knew the secret of the hidden key. Pat halloed loudly in response, and the next moment Stephen stood in the doorway, looking with bewildered eyes at the bespattered carpet.
“What’s this? Playing Aunt Sally? Rather a wanton waste of biscuits, isn’t it?”
“Try ’em, and see! Soft as dough. Give me that matchbox, Glynn, like a good soul. It fell off my chair, and I’ve been lying here pining for a smoke, and making pot shots of it, till I felt half mad.—If you only knew—”
Stephen Glynn did know. It was that knowledge which brought him regularly day by day to the little flat at the top of eighty odd stairs.
He walked across the room, his limp decidedly less in evidence through the passage of the years, reclaimed the matchbox, and seated himself on the edge of the couch.
“Light up, old fellow! It will do you good.”
Pat struck the match and sucked luxuriously. There was no need to make conversation to Glynn. He was a comfortable fellow who always understood. It was good to see him sitting there, to look at his fine, grave face, and realise that boredom was over, and the happiest hour of the day begun.
“I say, Glynn, I made you, come! Mesmerised you. It drives a fellow crazy to be done by a couple of inches. They say if you concentrate your thoughts—”
“I arranged this morning to call at five o’clock. I should say by the look of things you had concentrated on biscuits. ... Where’s that old woman?” Glynn inquired.
“Shopping. Always is. And never buys anything by the taste of the food. You should have seen my lunch! I’ll be a living skeleton at this rate.”
Pat spoke laughingly, but the hearer frowned, and looked quickly at the sharpened face, on which weeks of solitary confinement had left their mark.
“Why don’t you round into her?”
“Daren’t! Might make off and leave me in the lurch. They do, you know. Fellows have told me. Any one is better than no one at all when you are minus a leg.”
“And about that letter? The time limit runs out to-morrow. You know what I threatened?”
Pat shrugged impatiently.
“You and your threats! What’s the sense in worrying when it’s got to end in worrying, and can do no good? I’ve told you till I’m tired—the Hilliards are abroad, Dick Victor is down with rheumatism, and Bridgie makes sure he’s going to die every time his finger aches. She’d leave him if I died first, I suppose, but I wouldn’t make too sure even of that. ’Twould have finished her altogether to know that I was lying here all these weeks. However!” Pat shrugged again, “you’ve got your way, bad luck to you! Bridgie wrote to ask me to run down over a Sunday, to cheer Victor, so there was nothing for it but to own up. She’ll write me reams of advice and send embrocations. Serve you jolly well right if I rubbed them on you instead!”
“Fire away, I don’t mind! Your muscles would be the better for a little exercise.”
Stephen Glynn leaned back in his chair and looked affectionately at Pat’s dark, handsome face.
Twelve months before the two men had been introduced at a dinner following a big cricket match in which Pat had distinguished himself by a fine innings.
Stephen Glynn from his seat on the grand stand had applauded with the rest of the great audience, and looking at the printed card in his hand had wondered whether by chance P.D. O’Shaughnessy was any relation of the Irish Pixie to whom Stanor Vaughan had wished to be engaged. The wonder changed to certainty a few hours later on as he was introduced to the young player, and met the gaze of his straight, dark eyes! Pat was the handsomest of the three brothers, nevertheless it was not so much of beautiful Joan Hilliard that the beholder was reminded, at this moment, as of the younger sister, who had no beauty at all, for Esmeralda’s perfect features lacked the irradiation of kindliness and humour which characterised Pat and Pixie alike.
Stephen Glynn was not given to sudden fancies, but Pat O’Shaughnessy walked straight into his heart at that first meeting, and during the year which followed the acquaintance so begun had ripened into intimacy. Stephen spent a great part of his time in chambers in town, where the young man became a welcome guest, and no sooner had Pat soared to the giddy height of possessing a flat of his own, and settled down as a householder, than the accident had happened which made him dependent on the visits of his friends.
Pat was aware of Stephen’s connection with his family, and more especially with Pixie, but after one brief reference the subject had been buried, though Pixie herself was frequently mentioned. There was a portrait of her on Pat’s mantelpiece to which Stephen’s eyes often strayed during his visits to the flat. Truth to tell it was not a flattering portrait. Pixie was unfortunate so far as photography was concerned, since all her bad points were reproduced and her charm disappeared. Stephen wondered if Stanor were gazing at the same photograph in New York, and if his imagination were strong enough to supply the want. For himself he had no difficulty. So vivid was his recollection that even as he looked the set face of the photograph seemed to flash into smiles...
“Well, I am glad you have given in,” he said, continuing his sentence after a leisurely pause, “because my threat was real. I should certainly have written to your people if you hadn’t done it yourself. You are not being properly looked after, young man. To put it bluntly, you are not having enough to eat. When do you expect that obnoxious old female to come back and make tea?”
“’Deed, I’ve given over expecting,” said Pat despondently. “Most days I’m ready to drink the teapot by the time she brings it in. It’s a toss up if we get it at all to-day as she’s gone out.”
Stephen rose to his tall height and stood smiling down at the tired face.
“You shall have it, my boy. I’ll make it myself. It won’t be the first time. Have you any idea where the crocks live? I don’t want to upset—”
Before he could complete his sentence, a thunderous knocking sounded at the front door, causing both hearers to start with astonishment. So loud, so vigorous, so long continued was the assault, that the first surprise deepened into indignation, and Pat’s dark eyes sent out a threatening flash.
“This is too strong! Lost her key, I suppose, and expects me to crawl on all fours to let her in. You go, Glynn, and send her straight here to me! I’ll give her a bit of my mind. I’m just in the mood to do it. Leaving me alone for hours and then knocking down my door—!”
Stephen Glynn crossed the floor, his face set into an alarming sternness, for his irritation against his friend’s neglectful domestic had been growing for weeks, and this was the culminating point. He seized the handle, turned it quietly, and jerked the door open with a disconcerting suddenness which had the effect of precipitating the new-comer into his arms.
“Me dear!” she cried rapturously, as she fell, but the same moment she was upright again, bolt upright, scorching him with disdainful glance. “It’s not!—Where am I? ... They said it was Mr O’Shaughnessy’s flat!”
“It is! It is! Pixie! Pixie! Come in, come quick! Oh, you blessed little simpleton, what’s the meaning of this? You’d no business to come. There’s no room for you. I’m nearly well now. There’s no need—I—I— oh, Pixie!” and poor, tired, hungry Pat lay back weakly in his sister’s arms, and came perilously near subsiding into tears. It had been hard work keeping up his pecker all these long weeks, it was so overwhelmingly home-like to see Pixie’s face, and listen to her deep mellow tones...
“There’s got to be room, me dear, for I’ve come to stay. How dare you be ill by yourself? It’s a bad effect London has had on you to make you so close and secretive. You! Who yelled the roof down if you as much as scratched your finger! We got the note this morning—”
“Glynn made me send it. He’s been worrying at me for weeks. Glynn!” Pat raised his voice to a cry. “Where are you? Come in, you beggar. It’s Pixie! My sister Pixie. Come and shake hands.”
Stephen and Pixie advanced to meet each other, red in the face and bashful of eye. The encounter at the door had been so momentary that she had hardly had time to recognise the pale face with the deep blue eyes, but for him the first note of her voice had been sufficient.
“I—I thought you were Pat!”
“I—I thought you were the cook.”
She straightened at that, with a flash of half-resentful curiosity.
“Why? Am I so like her? And do you always—”
“No, I don’t. Never. But to-day she was out and your brother wanted—”
“Oh, never mind, never mind!” Pat was too greedy for attention to suffer a long explanation. “What does it matter? She’s a wretch, Pixie, and she goes out and leaves me to starve. That good Samaritan was going to make tea when we heard your knock.”
“I’ll make it for you!” Pixie said smiling, but she seated herself by Pat’s side as she spoke, and slid her hand through his arm, as though realising that for the moment her presence was the most welcome of all refreshments. She wore a smartly cut tweed coat and skirt, and a soft felt hat with a pheasant’s wing, and her brown shoes looked quite preposterously small and bright. In some indefinable way she looked older and more responsible than the Pixie of two years before, and Stephen noticed the change and wondered as to its cause.
“I think I will go now,” he said hastily; “your sister will look after you, O’Shaughnessy, and you will have so much to talk about. I’ll come again!”
But Pat was obstinate; he insisted that his friend should stay on, and appealed to Pixie for support, which she gave with great good will.
“Please do! We’ll talk the better for having an audience. Won’t we now, Pat? We were always vain.”
“We were!” Pat assented with unction. “Especially yourself. Even as a child you played up to the gallery.” He took her hand and squeezed it tightly between his own. “Pixie, I can’t believe it! It’s too nice to be true. And Bridgie, what does she say? Does she approve of your coming?”
“She did one moment, and the next she didn’t. She was torn in pieces, the poor darling, wanting to come to you herself, and to stay with Dick at the same time. You know what she is when Dick is ill! His temperature has only to go up one point, to have her weeping about Homes for Soldiers’ Orphans, and pondering how she can get most votes. He’s buried with military honours, poor Richard, every time he takes a cold. So I was firm with her, and just packed my things and came off. At my age,” she straightened herself proudly, “one must assert oneself! I asked her what was the use of being twenty-two, and how she’d have liked it herself if she’d been thwarted at that age, and she gave in and packed up remedies.” Pixie picked up the brown leather bag which lay on the floor, and opening it, took out the contents in turns, and laid them on the sofa. “A tonic to build up the system. Beef-juice, to ditto. Embrocation to be applied to the injured part. ... Tabloids. Home-made cake. ... Oh, that tea! I’d forgotten. I’ll make it at once, and we’ll eat the cake now.” She jumped up and looked appealingly towards Stephen. “Will you show me the kitchen? I don’t know my way through these lordly fastnesses!”
They went out of the room together, while Pat called out an eager, “Don’t be long!”
It was only a step into the tiny kitchen. In another moment Stephen and Pixie stood within its portals, and she had closed the door behind with a careful hand. Her face had sobered, and there was an anxious furrow in her forehead.
“He looks ill!” she said breathlessly. “Worse than I expected. He said he was getting well. Please tell me honestly—Is it true?”
“Perfectly true in one sense. The knee is doing well, but his general health has suffered. He has been lonely and underfed, and at the first there was considerable pain. I did my best to make him write to you before, for he is not fit to be left alone. That servant is lazy and inefficient.”
Pixie glanced round the untidy room with her nose tilted high.
“’Twill be a healthful shock for her to come back and find a mistress in possession. We’ll have a heart to heart talk to-morrow morning,” she announced, with so quaint an assumption of severity that Stephen was obliged to laugh. She laughed with him, struggling out of her coat, and looking round daintily for a place to lay it.
“That nail on the door! There’s not a clean spot. Now for the kettle! You fill it, while I rummage. What’s the most unlikely place for the tea? It will be there. She’s the sort of muddler who’d leave it loose among the potatoes.”
“It’s in the caddy. The brown box on the dresser. I’ve found it before.”
“The caddy!” Pixie looked quite annoyed at so obvious a find. “Oh, so it is. Where’s the butter then, and the bread, and the sugar? Where’s the spoons? Where does she put the cloths? Rake out that bottom bar to make a draught. Does he get feverish at nights? It’s a mercy I brought a cake, for I don’t believe there’s a thing. Does he take it strong?”
She was bustling about as she spoke, opening and shutting drawers, standing on tip-toe to peer over kitchen shelves, lifting the lids of dishes upon the dresser. One question succeeded fast upon another, but she did not trouble herself to wait for a reply, and Stephen, watching with a flickering smile, was quite nonplussed when at last she paused, as if expectant of an answer.
“What strong?”
“Tea! What else could it be? We were talking of tea.”
“I beg your pardon. So we were. Yes, he does like it strong, and there’s only one set of cups, white with a gold rim. There were two left the other day, but it’s quite possible they have disappeared. She is a champion breaker.”
“We’ll have tumblers then,” Pixie said briskly. “The nicest tea I ever had was at a seaside inn where we made it ourselves in a bedroom to save the expense. Oh, here they are, and here’s the milk. Now we shan’t be long!” Then suddenly, standing before the cupboard door, and tilting her head over her shoulder, “When did you hear from Stanor?” she asked, in a still, altered voice which struck like a blow.
Stephen Glynn gave no outward sign of surprise, yet that sudden question had sent racing half a dozen pulses, as voicing the words in his own mind. “When did you hear from Stanor? What do you hear from Stanor?” The first sight of the girl’s face had added intensity to the curiosity of years—a curiosity which within the last months had changed into anxiety. He hesitated before answering the simple question.
“He does not write often. We had a good deal of correspondence when he decided to stay in New York the extra six months. He seems to have acclimatised wonderfully, and to be absorbed in his work, unusually absorbed for his age.”
“But that is what you wanted. You must be pleased about that,” Pixie said quietly. She was arranging the cups and saucers on the tray, but she looked at him as she spoke, a straight, sweet look, which yet held so much sadness that it cut like a knife.
“Miss O’Shaughnessy,” he cried impetuously, “can you forgive me? I took too much upon myself. I did it for the best, but—two years is too long. One settles down. It was a blow to me when he stayed on, for my own sake, and—”
Pixie nodded gravely.
“Yes. We were both sorry. We wanted of course to see him, but you should not blame him for loving his work. You blamed him before because he was changeable; now he has done so well, you must be proud.” She smiled at him with determined cheerfulness. “I am proud. And it is not as if it were making him ill. He finds time to play. Honor Ward often writes and she tells me—”
“Miss Ward seems an adept at play,” returned Stephen dryly.
In truth, the lavishness of the entertainments which Honor had planned during the past two years had called the attention of even the English papers. Pixie had read aloud descriptions thereof in the journals in the northern town where Captain Victor was still stationed, and Bridgie listening thereto had exclaimed in horror: “Special liveries for all the men-servants just for that one evening! How wicked! All that money for a few hours, when poor children are starving, and myself wanting a velvet coat...”
At first Pixie had divined that Honor was trying to drown her sorrow in gaiety, and was even guilty of a girlish desire to “show off” before her former lover, but as the months grew into years it was impossible to read her letters and not realise that her enjoyment was real, not feigned, and that she had outgrown regret. Yes, Honor was happy; and to judge from her accounts Stanor was happy too, able even in his busiest days to spare time to join the revels, and, indeed, to help in their organisation.
“Miss Ward is an adept at play. I don’t approve of these gorgeous entertainments,” said Stephen, and Pixie’s eyes lightened with a mischievous flash.
“Seems to me you are never satisfied! Now for myself nothing could be gorgeous enough!” She held out a brown teapot with a broken spout. “The water’s boiling. Pour it in please, and don’t splash! I’ll carry it right in, for Pat is impatient. We mustn’t keep him waiting.” She waited until the pot was safely on the tray, and then added a warning: “Please don’t talk about—things—before Pat. He’d worry, but I’d like your advice. Another time, perhaps, when we are alone.” Her eyes met his, gravely beseeching, and he looked searchingly back.
Yes, she had suffered. It was no longer the face of a light-hearted child. Loyal as ever, Pixie would not listen to a word against her friend, but what secret was she hiding in her heart?