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Pixie O'Shaughnessy

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<h3>Chapter Four.</h3> <h4>First Impressions.</h4> Pixie’s first week at school was a period of delirious excitement. Above all things in the world she loved to be of importance, and occupy a foremost place with those around her, and she was proudly conscious that her name was on every lip, her doings the subject of universal attention. New girls were wont to be subdued and bashful in their demeanour, and poor unfortunates who arrived after the beginning of the term to find other pupils settled down into regular work, were apt to feel doubly alone. By this time those arrangements are determined which are of such amazing importance to the schoolgirl’s heart—Clara has sworn deathless friendship with Ethel; Mary, Winifred, and Elsie have formed a “triple alliance,” each solemnly vowing to tell the other her inmost secrets, and consult her in all matters of difficulty. Rosalind and Bertha have agreed to form a pair in the daily crocodile, and Grace has sent Florence to Coventry because she has dared to sharpen pencils for Lottie, the school pet, when she knew perfectly well that it was Grace’s special privilege, and she is a nasty, interfering thing, anyhow, and ought to be snubbed! What chance has a poor late-comer against such syndicates as these? There is nothing for her but to take a back place, and wait patiently for a chance at the beginning of another term. Pixie O’Shaughnessy, however, has never taken a back place in her life, and has no intention of beginning now. On her very first evening the two head girls entered the school parlour to find a small, ugly girl seated in the middle of the hearth rug on the most comfortable chair which the room afforded, and were invited in the most genial manner to, “Shtep forward and take a seat!” “It’s rhemarkably cold for the time of year!” remarked the small person, making no sign of giving up her seat, but waving blandly towards the cane chairs by the wall. “I’m the new girl, I come from Ireland. Me father brought me. I’m the youngest of six, and I’ve come to school to correct me brogue, and be polished up. As soon as I’ve finished I shall go back to me home!” The head girl came over to the fireplace, and stared downwards with wide grey eyes. She looked almost grown-up, for her hair was twisted round and round like a lady’s, and her dress reached to her ankles. “That’s very interesting!” she said slowly. “I am glad you have made yourself comfortable, for from what you say I expect we shall have you with us for quite a long time. Can’t you tell us some more family details while you are about it?” “I can so!” said Pixie with emphasis, and sitting erect in her seat she folded her hands in her lap, and began to talk. The room was filling by this time, for the quarter of an hour before tea was a cosy holiday-time, when the girls could talk without restraint, and compare notes on the work of the day. One by one they approached the fireside, until Pixie’s chair was surrounded by a compact wall of laughing young faces, and thirty pairs of eyes stared at her from head to foot, back again from foot to head. Her black skirt was so short that it was like a flounce, and nothing more; from chest to back there was no more width than could be covered by the scraggy little arm, the feet dangled half-way to the floor, and the hands waved about, emphasising every sentence with impassioned gestures. At the end of ten minutes what the pupils of Holly House did not know about the O’Shaughnessy family may be safely described as not worth knowing! They had been treated to graphic descriptions of all its members, with illustrative anecdotes setting them forth in their best and worst lights; they had heard of the ancient splendours of the Castle, and the past glories of the family, and—for Pixie was gifted with a most engaging honesty—they had also heard of the present straitness of means, the ingenious contrivances by which the family needs were supplied, and even of one tragic episode when the butcher refused to supply any more meat, just when one of the county magnates was expected to dinner! It had been a ghastly occasion, but Bridgie went and “spoke soft to him,” and he was a decent man, and he said it wasn’t for “all the mutton in the world,” he said, that he would see her shamed before the quality, so all ended as happily as could be desired! “I wouldn’t tell stories like that if I were you, Pixie,” said the head girl gravely, at the end of this recital. She had not laughed as the others had done, but looked at the little chatterbox with a grave, steady glance. Margaret had gained for herself the title of “School-Mother”, by thinking of something better than the amusement of the moment, and being brave enough to speak a word of warning when she saw a girl setting out on a path which was likely to bring her into trouble. “I wouldn’t tell stories like that!” she repeated, and when the swift “Why not?” came back, she was ready with her reply. “Because I am sure your people would not like it. It is all right for you to tell us about your brothers and sisters, and it was very interesting. I wish Bridgie and Esmeralda had come to school with you; but we don’t tell stories of our home doings of which we are,”—she was about to say “ashamed,” but the child’s innocent eyes restrained her—“about which we are sorry! We keep those to ourselves.” “But—but we got the mutton! He gave us the mutton!” cried Pixie, agape with wonder. It seemed to her an interesting and highly creditable history, seeing that Bridgie had had the better of the butcher, and maintained the family credit in the eyes of the neighbourhood. She could not understand Margaret’s gravity, and the half-amused, half-pitiful glances of the older pupils. The girl standing nearest to her put an arm round her neck, and said, “Poor little girlie!” in such a soft, tender voice that her tears overflowed at the moment, and she returned the embrace with startling fervour. Pixie’s emotions were all on the surface, and she could cry at one moment and laugh at the next, with more ease than an ordinary person could smile or sigh. When the gong sounded for tea, she went downstairs with her arms twined fondly round the waists of two new friends, and there was quite a quarrel among the girls as to who should sit beside her. Miss Phipps was at one end of the table, and Mademoiselle, the resident French teacher, at the other, and between them stretched a long white space flanked by plates of bread-and-butter, and in the centre some currant scones, and dishes of jam. These latter dainties were intended to supply a second course when appetite had been appeased by plainer fare, but the moment that grace was said the new-comer helped herself to the largest scone she could find, half covered her plate with jam, and fell to work with unrestrained relish, while thirty pairs of eyes watched with fascinated horror. She thought that everyone seemed uncommonly quiet and solemn, and was casting about in her mind for a pleasant means of opening the conversation, when a sound broke on her ears which recalled one of Pat’s prophecies with unpleasant distinctness. Mademoiselle was talking in her native tongue, and it was not in the least like the French which she had been accustomed to hear in the schoolroom at Bally William. The agonising presentiment that her ignorance was about to be discovered before her schoolmates reduced Pixie at one blow to a condition of abject despair. She hung her head over her plate, and strove to avoid attention by keeping as quiet as possible. “They speak too quick. It’s rude to gabble!” she told herself resentfully. “And I know some French meself. ‘J’ai, tu as, il a, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont.’ Listen at that, now!” She felt a momentary thrill of triumph in her achievement, but it quickly faded away, as further efforts showed how scanty was the knowledge upon which she could draw. “Je suis faim” was the only phrase which occurred at the moment, and appropriately enough too! She stretched out her hand to take a second scone, but was immediately called to order by Miss Phipps’s soft voice. “Bread-and-butter this time, Pixie! You are not supposed to take scones until you have had at least three pieces of bread. You must do as the other girls do, you know, dear!” “Oi like a relish to my tay!” sighed Pixie sadly, and five separate girls who happened to have their cups to their mouths at the moment, choked immediately, and had to be patted on the backs by their companions. All the girls were laughing; even the victims smiled amidst their struggles, and Mademoiselle’s brown eyes were sparkling with amusement. There was not one of them half so beautiful as Esmeralda, nor so sweet as Bridgie, but they were good to look at all the same, reflected the new pupil critically. Right opposite sat her three room-mates—Flora, plump and beaming; Kate, sallow and spectacled; Ethel, the curious, with a mane of reddish brown hair, which she kept tossing from side to side with a self-conscious, consequential air. Margaret sat by Miss Phipps’s side, and helped her by putting sugar and milk into the cups. Glance where she would, she met bright, kindly smiles, and her friend on either side looked after her wants in the kindest of manners. Pixie did not know their names, so she addressed them indiscriminately as “darlin’,” and was prepared to vow eternal friendship without waiting to be introduced. “Do you always speak French at meals?” she asked under cover of the general conversation a few minutes later, and the reply was even worse than her fears. “We are supposed to speak it always, except in the quarter of an hour before tea, and on Sundays, and holidays. But of course, if you do not know a word you can ask Mademoiselle, or look it up in a dictionary, and the new girls get into it gradually. Miss Phipps is a darling; she can’t bear to see a girl unhappy, and of course it is difficult to get into school ways when you have been taught at home. I have been here for two years, and am as happy as possible, though I cried myself sick the first week. If you do what you are told and work hard, you will have a very good time at Holly House.” Pixie looked dubious. “But aren’t you ever naughty?” she asked anxiously. “Not really bad, you know, but just mischeevious! Don’t you ever play tricks, or have pillow fights, or secret suppers up in your room, or dress up as bogeys to frighten the others?” “Certainly not!” Eleanor Hopton was a proper and dignified young lady, and the straightness of her back was quite alarming as she frowned dissent at the new-comer. “Frighten people, indeed! Do you not call that naughty? It’s a wicked and dangerous thing to do, and you would be punished severely if you attempted it. I have read of people who died of fright. How would you feel if you played bogey, as you call it, to startle one of the girls, and she had a weak heart and died before your eyes? You would feel pretty miserable then, I should say.” “I would so! I’d get the fright myself that time. But suppers, now,—suppers don’t hurt anyone!” urged Pixie, pushing aside one objectionable proposition and bringing forward the next with unconscious generalship. “Don’t you ever smuggle things upstairs—sausages and cakes, and sardines and cream—and wake up early in the morning—early—early, before it is light—and eat them together, and pretend you are ladies and gentlemen, or shipwrecked mariners on desert islands, or wild Indians, or anything like that, and talk like they talk, and dance about the room?” “Cer-tain-ly not! The very idea!” cried Eleanor once more. “I never heard of anything so silly. Why on earth should one sit up shivering to eat things in the middle of the night, when one can have them comfortably downstairs at the right hour? I should not think of doing anything so foolish.” Pixie sighed heavily. This was England indeed! For the first time since entering the house she realised that she was a stranger in a strange land. Eleanor’s calm commonsense was so entirely foreign to her nature that she felt a distinct chilling of the new affection. The companion on her right looked more sympathetic, and she addressed her next remark in that direction. “We were for ever playing tricks on one another at home. Bridgie and Esmeralda sleep in the same bed, and one day Pat—that’s the second boy—the next but one to me—he went to Bridgie and he says, ‘I’ve played a fine joke on Esmeralda! Ask no questions, but just wait up until she gets into bed to-night, and you’ll have the best laugh you’ve had this side Christmas.’ Then off he goes to Esmeralda, and ‘Keep a secret!’ says he. ‘Let Bridget be the first to get into bed to-night. Make an excuse and sit up yourself to see the fun, for she’ll have a fine surprise when she lies down.’ The girls guessed that they had been taking the laths off the bed, as they had done once or twice before, to let a visitor fall through on to the floor, and it was a very cold night, and they were tired, for they had been working hard mending the staircase carpet; and says Bridgie to Esmeralda, ‘Just hurry up, can’t you! I never did see such a girl for dawdling. Get into bed,’ she says, ‘and don’t sit up all night.’ ‘Oh,’ says Esmeralda, smiling, ‘I’ve a fancy to brush out me hair. Take no notice of me, but just lie down and turn your face to the wall, and I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.’ ‘I never can sleep with a light in the room,’ says Bridgie, quite testy... I was in my own bed in the dressing-room, so I heard what they said, and was stuffing the bedclothes into my mouth not to laugh out and spoil the fun. ‘If you are going to make a night of it, I’ll sit down and read, and you can let me know when you are ready.’ ‘You will catch cold sitting in that draught!’ Esmeralda says, her own teeth chattering, for it was mortal cold, and there was a hole in the window above her head, where Pat had thrown up a stone when he wanted to wake her one morning, and couldn’t spare time to walk upstairs. ‘And you know, Bridget, you are always delicate on the chest.’ ‘It’ll be on your head, then,’ says Bridgie, ‘if I am made ill, keeping me up when I’m longing for my bed! Come, dear,’ wheedling her to see if she could get round that way, ‘leave it alone now, and I’ll brush it for you in the morning. It is beautiful hair, and Mrs Gallagher the laundress was saying to me this morning there wasn’t its match in the country.’ And Esmeralda said afterwards that she was too cold for compliments, so she up and said it was her own hair, and she’d brush it when she liked, and how she liked, without interference from anyone; and at that they grew mad, and began quarrelling with each other, and throwing up everything that ever they did since they were short-coated, and meself lying trembling on me bed, to think what would happen next. Joan—that’s Esmeralda—she would have sat up all night, she’s that obstinate, but Bridgie grew tired, and says she, ‘I’m not going to catch me death shivering here for all the jokes on earth, so here goes, and I don’t care what happens!’ and with that she throws herself down on the bed; and—would ye believe it?—nothing happened at all. The bed was as right as it had been all its life, and the boys had had their joke without any trouble.” Pixie finished in the midst of a dead silence, for one by one the speakers round the table had paused to listen to the soft Irish voice, and the story once begun had riveted attention. Some of the girls laughed outright, some held down their heads to conceal their smiles, some nudged their companions and looked demurely at Miss Phipps to take their cue from her face. She was undoubtedly smiling, but she looked worried all the same, and gave the signal for rising in a hurried manner, as if anxious to allow no time for comment. The girls rose and filed slowly past, Pixie skipping complacently in front, with her arm round another new friend, whom she was prepared to adore even more fondly than the last. Only Margaret remained behind to assist in putting the room in order, and when the door shut Miss Phipps looked at her under raised appealing brows. “I am afraid we have rather a difficult subject there, Margaret! Poor little thing! Her father says she has been allowed to run wild, and it will be difficult for her to get into school ways. She doesn’t mean to be forward, but of course we can’t allow her to go on like this. She must be taught wholesome respect and reticence, but I don’t want to be too hard upon her at first. She’s a lovable little creature, and I’ve no doubt will be a favourite with the girls. They like to be amused, and I fear they may encourage her for the sake of their own amusement. You must help me, dear, by setting a good example and checking her gently when she gets excited.” “I’ll try!” said Margaret, but she looked by no means hopeful of success. “I did try before tea. She was telling the most extraordinary tales about home, and I said it was not right to repeat such things, but she seemed quite puzzled. She doesn’t seem to have the same ideas that we have, or the same feelings about things.” Miss Phipps sighed, and shook her head. “She is a difficult subject,” she repeated anxiously; then her face lighted up suddenly and she began to laugh. “But you can’t help liking her!” she cried. “Funny little mite! I am growing quite fond of her already.” <hr> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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