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Love Affairs of Pixie

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<h3>Chapter Three.</h3> <h4>Nearly Twenty-one!</h4> Bridgie rang the bell to have the tea-things removed and a message sent to the nursery that the children might descend without further delay. It was still a few minutes before the orthodox hour, but the conversation had reached a point when a distraction would be welcome, and Jack and Patsie were invariably prancing with impatience from the moment when the smell of hot potato cakes ascended from below. They came with a rush, pattering down the staircase with a speed which made Bridgie gasp and groan, and bursting open the door entered the room at the double. Jack was five, and wore a blue tunic with an exceedingly long-waisted belt, beneath which could be discerned the hems of abbreviated knickers. Patricia was three, and wore a limp white frock reaching to the tips of little red shoes. She had long brown locks, and eyes of the true O’Shaughnessy grey, and was proudly supposed to resemble her beautiful aunt Joan. Jack was fair, with linty locks and a jolly brown face. His mouth might have been smaller and still attained a fair average in size, but for the time being his pretty baby teeth filled the cavern so satisfactorily, that no one could complain. Both children made straight for their mother, smothered her with “Bunnie” hugs, and then from the shelter of her arms cast quick, questioning glances across the fireplace. There was in their glance a keenness, a curiosity, almost amounting to awe, which would at once have arrested the attention of an onlooker. It was not in the least the smiling glance of recognition which is accorded to a member of the household on meeting again after one of the short separations of the day; it resembled far more the half-nervous, half-pleasurable shrinking from an introduction to a stranger, about whom was wrapped a cloak of deepest mystery. As for Pixie herself she sat bolt upright in her seat, staring fixedly into space, and apparently unconscious of the children’s presence. Presently Jack took a tentative step forward, and Patsie followed in his wake. Half a yard from Pixie’s chair they stopped short with eager, craning faces, with bodies braced in readiness for a flying retreat. “Pixie!” No answer. Still the rigid, immovable figure. Still the fixed and staring eye. “P–ixie!” The eyes rolled; a deep, hollow voice boomed forth— “I’m not Pixie!” The expected had happened. They had known it was coming; would have been bitterly disappointed if it had failed, nevertheless they writhed and capered as though overcome with amazement. “P–ixie, Pixie, Who—Are—You—Now?” “I’m a wild buffalo of the plains!” answered Pixie unexpectedly, and as a wild buffalo she comported herself for the next half-hour, ambling on hands and knees round the room, while the children wreathed her neck with impromptu garlands made of wools from their mother’s work-basket, and made votive offerings of sofa cushions, footstools, and india-rubber toys. In the midst of the uproar Bridgie jumped from her seat and flew to the door, her ears sharp as ever to hear the click of her husband’s latch-key. The greeting in the narrow hall was delightfully lover-like for a married couple of six years’ standing, and they entered the drawing-room arm-in-arm, smiling with a contentment charming to witness. Captain Victor was satisfied that no one in the world possessed such an altogether delightful specimen of womanhood as his “bride.” She was so sweet, so good, so unselfish, and in addition to these sterling qualities, she was so cheerful, so spontaneous, so unexpected, that it was impossible for life to grow dull and monotonous while she was at the head of the household. He acknowledged tenderly, and with a shrug of the shoulders to express resignation, that she might have been a cleverer housekeeper and just a thought more economical in expenditure! but considering her happy-go-lucky upbringing under the most thriftless of fathers, the darling really deserved more praise for what she accomplished than blame for what was left undone. Bridgie, on the contrary, considered that Dick worried his head ridiculously about ways and means. Not for the world and all that it contained would she have accused him of being mean: she merely shrugged her shoulders and reminded herself that he was English, poor thing! English people had a preference for seeing money visibly in their purses before they spent it, while she herself had been brought up in a cheerful confidence that it would “turn up” somehow to pay the bills which had been incurred in faith. Captain Victor displayed not the faintest astonishment at discovering his sister-in-law on all fours, nor did he appear overcome to be introduced to her as a buffalo of the plains. He smiled at her almost as tenderly as at his own babies, and said— “How do, Buff! Pleased to have met you. So kind of you to make hay in my drawing-room,” which reproof brought Pixie quickly to her rightful position. That was another English characteristic of Dick Victor—he hated disorder, and was not appreciative of uproar on his return from a day’s work. Therefore there were picture-books in waiting for his return, and after a few minutes parleying Pixie cajoled the children into the dining-room on the plea of a bigger and more convenient table for the display of their treasures, leaving the husband and wife alone. Dick lay back in his easy chair, and stretched himself with an involuntary sigh of relief. He was devoted to his children, but a quiet chat with Bridgie was the treat par excellence at this hour of the day when he was tired and in need of rest. He stretched out a hand towards her, and she stroked it with gentle fingers. “Ye’re tired, dear. Will I get you a cup of tea? It’s not long since it went out. If I poured some hot-water in the pot...” Dick shuddered. “Thank you, ma’am, no! If I have any, I’ll have it fresh, but I don’t care about it to-day. It’s nice just to rest and talk. Anything happened to you to-day?” “There always does. It’s the most exciting thing in the world to be the mistress of a household,” said Bridgie, with relish. There were few days when Captain Victor was not treated to a history of accidents and contretemps on his return home, but unlike most husbands he rather anticipated than dreaded the recital, for Bridgie so evidently enjoyed it herself, taking a keen retrospective joy over past discomfitures. The Victor household had its own share of vicissitudes, more than its share perhaps, but through them all there survived a spirit of kindliness and good fellowship which took away more than half the strain. Maidservants arriving in moods of suspicion and antagonism found themselves unconsciously unarmed by the cheery, kindly young mistress, who administered praise more readily than blame, and so far from “giving herself airs” treated them with friendly kindliness and consideration. On the very rare occasions when a girl was poor-spirited enough to persist in her antagonism, off she went with a month’s money in her pocket, for the peace of her little home was the greatest treasure in the world to Bridgie Victor, and no hireling could be allowed to disturb it. The service in the little house might not be as mechanically perfect as in some others, the meals might vary in excellence, but that was a secondary affair. “If a bad temper is a necessary accompaniment of a good cook, then—give me herbs!” she would cry, shrugging her pretty shoulders, and her husband agreed—with reservations! He was a very happy, a very contented man, and every day of his life he thanked God afresh for his happy home, for his children, for the greatest treasure of all, sweet Bridget, his wife! To-day, however, the disclosure had nothing to do with domestic revolutions, and Bridgie’s tone in making her announcement held an unusual note of tragedy. “Dick, guess what! You’ll never guess! Pixie’s grown-up!” For a moment Captain Victor looked as was expected of him—utterly bewildered. He lay back in his chair, his handsome face blank and expressionless, the while he stared steadily at his wife, and Bridgie stared back, her distress palpably mingled with complacence. Speak she would not, until Dick had given expression to his surprise. She sat still, therefore, shaking her head in a melancholy mandarin fashion, which had the undesired effect of restoring his complacence. “My darling, what unnecessary woe! It’s astounding, I grant you; one never expected such a feat of Pixie; but the years will pass—there’s no holding them, unfortunately. How old is she, by the way? Seventeen, I suppose—eighteen?” “Twenty—nearly twenty-one!” Bridgie’s tone was tragic, and Dick Victor in his turn looked startled and grave. He frowned, bit his lip, and stared thoughtfully across the room. “Twenty-one? Is it possible? Grown-up, indeed! Bridgie, we should have realised this before. We have been so content with things as they were that we’ve been selfishly blind. If Pixie is over twenty we have not been treating her fairly. We have treated her too much as a child. We ought to have entertained for her, taken her about.” Bridgie sighed, and dropped her eyelids to hide the twinkle in her eyes. Like most husbands Dick preferred a quiet domestic evening at the end of a day abroad: like most wives Bridgie would have enjoyed a little diversion at the end of a day at home. Sweetly and silently for nearly half a dozen years she had subdued her preferences to his, feeling it at once her pleasure and her duty to do so, but now, if duty suddenly assumed the guise of a gayer, more sociable life, then most cheerfully would Irish Bridgie accept the change. “I think, dear,” she said primly, “it would be wise. Esmeralda has said so many a time, but I took no notice. I never did take any notice of Esmeralda, but she was right this time, it appears, and I was wrong. Imagine it! Pixie began bemoaning that she was not pretty, and it was not herself she was grieving for, or you, or Me!”—Bridgie’s voice sounded a crescendo of amazement over that last pronoun—“but whom do you suppose? You’ll never guess! Her future lovers!” It was just another instance of the provokingness of man that at this horrible disclosure Dick threw himself back in his chair in a peal of laughter; he laughed and laughed till the tears stood in his eyes, and Bridgie, despite herself, joined in the chorus. The juxtaposition of Pixie and lovers had proved just as startling to him as to his wife, but while she had been scandalised, he was frankly, whole-heartedly amused. “Pixie!” he cried. “Pixie with a lover! It would be about as easy to think of Patsie. Dear, quaint little Pixie! Who dares to say she isn’t pretty? Her funny little nose, her big, generous mouth are a hundred times more charming than the ordinary pretty face. I’ll tell you what it is, darling,”—he sobered suddenly;—“Pixie’s lover, whoever he may be, will be an uncommonly lucky fellow!” Husband and wife sat in silence for some moments after this, hand in hand, as their custom was in hours of privacy, while the thoughts of each pursued the same subject—Pixie’s opening life and their own duty towards it. On both minds was borne the unwilling realisation that their own home was not the ideal abode to afford the experience of life, the open intercourse with young people of her own age which it was desirable that the girl should now enjoy. As a means of adding to his income Captain Victor had accepted the position of adjutant to a volunteer corps in a northern city, and, as comparatively new residents, his list of acquaintances was but small. Esmeralda, or to speak more correctly, Joan, the second daughter of the O’Shaughnessy family, as the wife of the millionaire, Geoffrey Hilliard, possessed a beautiful country seat not sixty miles from town, while Jack, the eldest brother, had returned to the home of his fathers, Knock Castle, in Ireland, on the money which his wife had inherited from her father, after he had become engaged to her in her character of a penniless damsel. Jack was thankful all his life to remember that fact, though his easy-going Irish nature found nothing to worry about in the fact that the money was legally his wife’s, and not his own. Both Esmeralda as a society queen, and Sylvia as chatelaine of Knock, had opportunities of showing life to a young girl, with which Bridgie in her modest little home in a provincial town could not compete. Nevertheless, the heart of the tender elder sister was loath to part from her charge at the very moment when watchfulness and guidance were most important. She fought against the idea; assured herself that there was time, plenty of time. What, after all, was twenty-one? In two, three years one might talk about society; in the meantime let the child be! And Captain Victor, in his turn, looked into the future, and saw his Bridgie left sisterless in this strange town, bereft all day long of the society of the sweetest and most understanding of companions, and he, too, sighed, and asked himself what was the hurry. Surely another year, a couple of years! And then, being one in reality as well as in name, the eyes of husband and wife met and lingered, and, as if at the sweep of an angel’s wing, the selfish thoughts fell away, and they faced their duty and accepted it once for all. Bridgie leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder and sighed thankfully. “I have you, Dick, and the children! ’Twould be wicked to complain.” And Dick murmured gruffly— “I want no one but you,” and held her tightly in his arms, while Bridgie sniffed, and whimpered, like one of her own small children. “But if P–ixie—if Pixie is unhappy—if any wretched man breaks Pixie’s heart—” “He couldn’t!” Dick Victor said firmly. “No man could. That’s beyond them. Heart’s like Pixie’s don’t break, Honey! I don’t say they, may not ache at times, but breaking is a different matter. Your bantling is grown-up: you can keep her no longer beneath your wing. She must go out into the world, and work and suffer like the rest, but she’ll win through. Pixie the woman will be a finer creature than Pixie the child!” But Bridgie hid her face, and the tears rushed into her eyes, for hers was the mother’s heart which longed ever to succour and protect, and Pixie was the child whom a dying father had committed to her care. It was hard to let Pixie go. <hr /></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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