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Love Affairs of Pixie

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<h3>Chapter Twenty Four.</h3> <h4>He loves You.</h4> That evening Pat showed early signs of fatigue, and requested Bridgie to settle him for the night, bidding the while so marked a farewell to Pixie that she had no alternative but to retire forthwith to her own room. Truth to tell she was not sorry, for sleep had been an uncertain quantity of late, and the prospect of a long undisturbed night was agreeable. She dallied over her undressing, and when Bridgie joined her half an hour later, sat perched upon the bed, dressing-gowned, her hands clasped round her knees, watching with admiring eyes the picture of her sweet-faced sister seated before the dressing-table engaged in brushing out her long fair hair. “You’ve a fine head of hair, me dear! It’s wearing well. ... D’you remember the day you and Esmeralda had the trick played on you about going to bed, and sat up half the night brushing and combing to tire out the other?” “I do so,” answered Bridgie, but it was but a faint smile which she gave to the memory of that youthful joke. She parted her hair with a sweep of the brush, and gazing at her sister between the long gold strands said suddenly, and earnestly, “Pixie!” “Me dear?” “There’s something I want to say. ... To-morrow Mr Glynn will be here. Pat’s asked him to come back after church. He is going away on Monday, so it will be the last time. Be careful, darling! Think what you’re about. You don’t want to be unkind—” Pixie stared—a stunned, incredulous stare. “Unkind! To him! Are you raving? What am I to be careful about?” “Oh—oh—everything!” Bridgie’s breath came in a gasp of helplessness. It had been difficult to speak, but a sense of duty had driven her on, and now it was too late to stop. “Don’t—don’t talk to him so much. Don’t look at him.” (Did Pixie realise how instinctively her eyes sought Stephen’s for sympathy and appreciation?) “Don’t sit by the fire and sing.” A flush spread over Pixie’s cheek; her eyes widened. “Why? Doesn’t he like it? Isn’t it nice?” “Oh-oh, Pixie!” cried Bridgie helplessly. A vision rose before her of a little figure in a rose-coloured gown, of the firelight playing on the upturned face. She heard again, the deep crooning notes which filled the room with sweetness. To herself, a sister, the picture was full of charm—what must it be to a lonely man, in love for the first time in thirty-five years? She rose from her chair and came across to the bed: face to face, within the stretch of an arm, the sisters waited in silence, while the clock on the mantelpiece ticked out a long minute. “Pixie,” whispered Bridgie breathlessly, “don’t you know?” “What?” “Don’t you know, Pixie, that he loves you?” “Who loves me?” “Stephen Glynn. Oh, Pixie, didn’t you see?” The colour faded from Pixie’s face; she threw out her hand as if to ward off a threatened danger. There was a note almost of anger in her reply— “It’s not true; it’s not! It couldn’t be true. ... He care for me! For Me! You’re mad, Bridgie! You’re dreaming! There’s nothing...” “Oh, Pixie, there is! I saw it the first evening. I’d have spoken before, but Pat was so ill. Then I tried—you know how. I tried!—to send you away. I knew that every day was making it harder for him, more difficult to forget. I was so sorry for him! Pixie, he is thirty-five, and has suffered so much. It’s hard on a man when he gets to that age, and—” “Don’t!” cried Pixie sharply. She thrust out her hand once more, and cowered as if from a blow. “Bridgie, I can’t bear it! Don’t torture me, Bridgie. ... It isn’t true! You are making it up. Ah, Bridgie, it’s because you love me yourself that you think every one must do the same! He’s—Stanor’s uncle ... Pat’s friend—he was just kind like other friends. ... He never said a word ... looked a look.” Suddenly, unexpectedly the blood flared in her face as memory took her back to the hour when she stood at the door of the flat and watched Stephen’s abrupt descent down the flagged stairway. “Oh, Bridgie, are ye sure? Are ye sure? How are ye sure? It’s so easy to be deceived! Bridgie, you’ve no right to say it if you are not sure. I don’t believe you! Nothing could make me believe unless he said—” “Pixie, he has said!” The words fell from Bridgie’s lips as though in opposition to her judgment she were compelled to speak them. “Pat was hurt that he was going; he reproached him to-night after we left; they had a discussion about it, and he said Stephen Glynn said that he daren’t stay, he daren’t see more of you. ... Pat does not think he meant to say it, it just—said itself! And afterwards he set his lips, and put on his haughty air, and turned the conversation, and Pat dared not say another word. But he had said enough. ... His face! ... his voice! ... Pat did not believe he could feel so much. He cares desperately, Pixie.” Pixie sat motionless—so silent, so motionless, that not a breath seemed to stir her being. Bridgie waited, her face full of motherly tenderness, but the silence was so long, so intense, that by degrees the tenderness changed into anxiety. It was unlike emotional Pixie to face any crisis of life in silence; the necessity to express herself had ever been her leading characteristic, so that lack of expression was of all things the most startling, in her sister’s estimation. She stretched out her hand, and laid it on the bowed shoulder with a firm, strengthening touch. “Pixie! Look up! Speak to me! What are you thinking, dear?” Pixie raised her face, a set face, which to the watching eyes seemed apiece with the former silence. There seemed no expression on it; it was a lifeless mask which had been swept of expression. As the blank eyes looked into her own and the lips mechanically moved, Bridgie had the sensation of facing a stranger in the place of the beloved little sister. “I am honoured!” said Pixie flatly. “I am honoured!” She rose slowly from the bed, moving stiffly as though the mere physical effort were a strain, and passing by Bridgie’s inviting arms walked over to the dressing-table and began to loosen her own hair. “You have finished, Bridgie? I’m not in your way?” she asked quietly, and Bridgie faltered a weak “No!” and felt that the world was coming to an end. Pixie silent; Pixie dignified; Pixie quietly but unmistakably holding her sister and guardian at arm’s length, this was an experience petrifying in its unexpectedness! She had not spoken on the impulse of a moment; for days past she had been nerving herself to open Pixie’s eyes. At the bottom of her heart had lain a dawning hope that such an opening might not be in vain, for Pixie had never really loved Stanor Vaughan. At the time of their engagement she had not even understood what love meant; during the years of their separation there had been nothing but an occasional letter to preserve his image in her mind, and when the allotted two years were over, Stanor himself had voluntarily extended his exile. Bridgie set her lips as she recalled a fact so hurtful to her sister’s dignity. She heard again Pat’s voice, echoing the sentiments of her own heart. “Tell her, Bridgie! She ought to know. He’s worth a thousand of that other fellow. Don’t let her throw away the substance for the shadow.” So she had spoken, and a new Pixie—a Pixie she had never even imagined in dreams—had listened, and made her reply. “I am honoured!” she had said, and straightway, sweetly, courteously, irrevocably, had closed the subject. Bridgie bent her head and plaited her hair in the two long ropes which made her nightly coiffure. She was thankful of the employment, thankful of an excuse to hide her face; she listened to the ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece and asked herself what she should do next. The incredible had come to pass, and she, Bridgie, sister, guardian, married woman, mother of a family, was nervous in Pixie’s presence! Not for any bribe that could have been offered would she have ventured to hint at that hope which she and Pat had shared in common. Suddenly through the little flat rang the sound of the postman’s knock. The last of the many deliveries of the day had arrived, and Bridgie peeping out of the door spied a couple of white envelopes prone on the mat. She crept out to get them, thankful of the diversion, and was overjoyed to behold on one her husband’s writing. “One for me, Pixie, and one for you—an enclosure forwarded from home. I’m so glad to get mine. It’s nice for the postmen in London to have Sundays free, but we country people do miss letters,” she said glibly, as she handed Pixie her share of the spoil, and seated herself in the one comfortable chair which the room afforded, to enjoy to the full the welcome message from home. Perhaps Dick had divined the double anxiety which was burdening his wife, perhaps he realised how long she would feel a Sunday without news, perhaps out of his own loneliness had arisen a need for words—in any case, that special letter was the longest and, to Bridgie’s heart, the dearest which she had received since her departure from home. He told her of the children, and of their latest sayings; he told her of himself and his work; he comforted her, where she needed comfort, cheered her, where she needed cheer, called her by the sweet love names which she most loved to hear, and held before her eyes the prospect of a swift return. And Bridgie reading that letter thanked God for the thousandth time, because on her—undeserving—had been bestowed the greatest gift which a woman can receive—the gift of a faithful love! Ten minutes had passed before she had read and re-read her precious letter, but when she turned her head it was to find Pixie standing in the same position as that in which she had seen her last, gazing down upon a sheet of paper on which a few short lines were written in a masculine writing. At Bridgie’s movement she raised her head, and spoke in a curiously low, level voice— “It is from Stanor. He has sailed for home. Honor Ward and a party of friends were crossing, and he decided at the last moment to come with them. We shall see him on Thursday next.” <hr /></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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