Mrs Geoffrey Hilliard, _nee_ Joan O'Shaughnessy, was the second
daughter of the family, and had been christened Esmeralda "for short" by
the brothers and sisters of whom she had been alternately the pride and
the trial. The fantastic name had an appropriateness so undeniable that
even Joan's husband had adopted it in his turn for use in the family
circle, reserving the more dignified "Joan" for more ceremonious
occasions.
"Esmeralda" had been a beauty from her cradle, and would be a beauty if
she lived to be a hundred, for her proud, restless features were
perfectly chiselled, and her great grey eyes, with the long black lashes
on the upper and lower lid, were as eloquent as they were lovely. When
she was angry, they seemed to send out veritable flashes of fire; when
she was languid, the white lids drooped and the fringed eyelashes veiled
them in a misty calm; when she was loving, when she held her boys in her
arms, or spoke a love word in her husband's ear, ah! Then it was a joy
indeed to behold the beauty of those limpid eyes! They "melted" indeed,
not with tears, but with the very essence of tenderness and love.
"Esmeralda's so nice that you couldn't believe she was so horrid!"
Pixie had declared once in her earlier years, and unfortunately there
was still too much truth in the pronouncement.
Seven years of matrimony, and the responsibility of two young sons, had
failed to discipline the hasty, intolerant nature, although they had
certainly deepened the inner longing for improvement. Joan devotedly
loved her husband, but accepted as her right his loyal devotion, and
felt bitterly aggrieved when his forbearance occasionally gave way.
She adored her two small sons, and her theories on motherhood were so
sweet and lofty that Bridgie, listening thereto, had been moved to
tears. But in practice the theories were apt to go to the wall. To do
Joan justice she would at any time have marched cheerfully to the stake
if by so doing she could have saved her children from peril, but she was
incapable of being patient during one long rainy afternoon, when
confinement in the house had aroused into full play those mischievous
instincts characteristic of healthy and spirited youngsters; and if any
one imagines that the two statements contradict each other, he has yet
to learn that heroic heights of effort are easier of accomplishment than
a steady jog-trot along a dull high-road.
Joan Hilliard's reflections on the coming of her younger sister were
significant of her mental attitude. "Pixie's no trouble. She's such an
easy soul. She fits into corners and fills in the gaps. She'll amuse
the boys. It will keep them in good humour to have her to invent new
games. She'll keep Geoff company at breakfast when I'm tired. I'll get
some of the duty visits over while she's here. She'll talk to the
bores, and be so pleased at the sound of her own voice that she'll never
notice they don't answer. And she'll cheer me up when _I'm_ bored.
And, of course, I'll take her about--"
Pixie's amusement, it will be noticed, was but a secondary consideration
to Joan's own ease and comfort; for though it may be a very enjoyable
experience to be a society beauty and exchange poverty for riches, no
one will be brave enough to maintain that such an experience is
conducive to the growth of spiritual qualities. Sweet-hearted Bridgie
might possibly have come unscathed through the ordeal, but Esmeralda was
made of a different clay.
Pixie started alone on the three hours' journey, for the Victor
household possessed no maid who could be spared, and husband and wife
were both tied by home duties; moreover, being a modern young woman, she
felt perfectly competent to look after herself, and looked forward to
the experience with pleasure rather than dread. Bridgie was inclined to
be tearful at parting, and Pixie's artistic sense prompted a similar
display, but she found herself simply incapable of forcing a tear.
"It's worse for you than for me," she confessed candidly, "for you've
nothing to do, poor creature! But go home to cold mutton and darning,
while I'm off to novelty and adventure. That's why the guests sometimes
cry at a wedding, out of pity for themselves, because they can't go off
on a honeymoon with a trousseau and an adoring groom. They pretend it's
sympathetic emotion, but it isn't; it's nothing in the world but selfish
regret. ... Don't cry, darling; it makes me feel so mean. Think of the
lovely _tete-a-tete_ this will mean for Dick and you!"
"Yes--in the evenings. I'll love that!" confessed Bridgie, with the
candour of her race. "But oh, Pixie, the long, dull days, and no one to
laugh with me at the jokes the English can't see, or to make pretend!--"
"Ah!" mourned Pixie deeply, "I'll miss that, too! The times we've had,
imagining a fortune arriving by the afternoon post, and spending it all
before dinner! All the fun, and none of the trouble. But it's dull,
imagining all by oneself! And Dick's no good. He calls it waste of
time! I shall marry an Irishman, Bridgie, when my time comes!"
"Get into the train and don't talk nonsense!" said Bridgie firmly. She
felt it prophetic that on this eve of departure Pixie's remarks should
again touch on husbands and weddings, but not for the world would she
have hinted as much. She glanced at the other occupant of the
carriage--a stout, middle-aged woman, and was on the point of inviting
her chaperonage when a warning gleam in Pixie's eyes silenced the words
on her lips. So presently the train puffed out of the station, and
Bridgie Victor turned sadly homewards even as Pixie seated herself with
a bounce, and smiled complacently into space.
"That's over!" she said to herself with a sigh of relief, glad as ever,
to be done with painful things and able to look forward to the good to
come. "She thinks she's miserable, the darling, but she'll be as happy
as a grig the moment she gets back to Dick and the children. That's the
worst of living with married sisters! They can manage so well without
you. I'd prefer some one who was frantic if I turned my back--"
She smiled at the thought, and met an ingratiating smile upon the face
of her travelling companion. The companion was stout and elderly,
handsomely dressed, and evidently of a sociable disposition. It was the
height of her ambition on a railway journey to meet another woman to
whom she could shout confidences for hours upon end, but it was rarely
that her sentiments were returned. Fate had been kind to her to-day in
placing Pixie O'Shaughnessy in the same carriage.
"The young lady seemed quite distressed to leave you. Is she your
sister?"
"She is. Do you think we are alike?"
"I--I wouldn't go so far as to say _alike_!" the large lady said
blandly; "but there's a _look_! As I always say, there's no knowing
where you are with a family likeness. My eldest girl--May--takes after
her father; Felicia, the youngest, is the image of myself; yet they've
been mistaken for each other times and again. It's a turn of the
chin.--Is she married?"
"Who? Bridgie--my sister? Oh yes--very much. Six years."
"Dear me! She looks so young! My May is twenty-seven. She has had her
chances, of course. Any children?"
"Wh--" Pixie's mind again struggled after the connection. "Oh, two--a
boy and a girl. They are called," she added, with a benevolent
consciousness of sparing further effort, "Patrick and Patricia."
"Irish, evidently," the large lady decided shrewdly. "Rather awkward,
isn't it, about pet names, and laundry marks, and so forth? However.
... And so you've been paying her a visit, I suppose, and are returning
to your home?"
"One of my homes," corrected Pixie happily. "I have three. Two sisters
and one brother. And they all like to have me. My parents are dead."
Her tone showed that the loss referred to was of many years' standing;
nevertheless, the stout lady hurriedly changed the conversation, as
though fearful of painful reminiscences.
"I have been having a morning's shopping. We live _quite_ in the
country, and I come to town every time I need a new gown. I have been
arranging for one this morning, for a wedding. So difficult, when one
has no ideas! I chose purple."
Pixie cocked her head on one side and thoughtfully pursed her lips.
"Very nice! Yes, purple's so--_portly_!" She surprised a puckering of
the large lady's face, and hastened to supplement the description.
"Portly, and--er--regal, and _duchessy_, don't you think? I met a
duchess once--she was rather like you--and _she_ wore purple!"
The large lady expanded in a genial warmth. Her lips opened in a
breathless question--
"How was the bodice made?"
Pixie reflected deeply.
"I can't exactly _say_! But it was years ago. It would be quite
_demode_. For a wedding, of course, you must be up to date. Weddings
make a fuss for months, and are so _soon_ over--I mean for the guests.
They are not _much_ fun."
"Where did you meet the Duchess?"
"Oh, at my sister's--the one I am going to now. In her town house, at a
reception one afternoon. She had a purple dress with lace, and a Queen
Victoria sort of bonnet with strings, and little white feathers sticking
up in the front; and she had a--" Pixie smiled into space with
reminiscent enjoyment--"_beautiful_ sense of humour!"
The large lady looked deeply impressed, and, beginning at the topmost
ribbon on Pixie's hat, stared steadily downward to the tip of the little
patent-leather shoe, evidently expecting to find points of unusual
interest in the costume of a girl whose sister entertained a duchess in
her town house. The train had rattled through a small hamlet and come
out again into the open before she spoke again.
"Do you see many of them?"
"Which? What? Bonnets? Feathers? I don't think I quite--"
"Duchesses!" said the large lady deeply. And Pixie, who still preserved
her childish love of cutting a dash, fought with, and overcame an
unworthy temptation to invent several such titles on the spot.
"Not--many," she confessed humbly, "But, you see, I'm so young--I'm
hardly `out.' The sister with whom I've been living has not been able
to entertain. Where I'm going it is different. I expect to be very
gay."
The large lady nodded brightly.
"Quite right! Quite right! Only young once. Laugh while you may. I
like to see young things enjoying themselves. ... And then you'll be
getting engaged, and marrying."
"Oh, of course," assented Pixie, with an alacrity in such sharp contrast
with the protests with which the modern girl sees fit to meet such
prophecies, that the hearer was smitten not only with surprise but
anxiety. An expression of real motherly kindliness shone in her eyes as
she fixed them upon the girl's small, radiant face.
"I hope it will be `of course,' dear, and that you may be very, very
happy; but it's a serious question. I'm an old-fashioned body, who
believes in love. If it's the real thing it _lasts_, and it's about the
only thing upon which you can count. Health comes and goes, and riches
take wing. When I married Papa he was in tin-plates, and doing well,
but owing to American treaties (you wouldn't understand!) we had to put
down servants and move into a smaller house. Now, if I'd married him
for money, how should I have felt _then_?"
Pixie wagged her head with an air of the deepest dejection. She was
speculating as to the significance of tin-plates, but thought it tactful
not to inquire.
"I hope--" she breathed deeply--"I hope the tin-plates--" and her
companion gathered together her satchel and cloak in readiness for
departure at the next station, nodding a cheerful reassurance.
"Oh, yes; _quite_ prosperous again! Have been for years. But it only
shows. ... And Papa has attacks of gout. They are trying, my dear, to
_me_, as well as to himself; but if you love a man--well, it comes
easier. ... Here's my station. So glad to have met you! I'll remember
about the purple."
The train stopped, and the good lady alighted and passed through the
wicket-gate, and her late companion watched her pass with a sentimental
sigh.
"`Ships that pass in the night, and signal each other in passing.' She
took to me, and I took to her. She'll talk about me all evening to May
and Felicia, and the tin-plate Papa, and ten chances to one we'll never
meet again. `It's a sad world, my masters!'" sighed Pixie, and dived in
her bag for a chocolate support.
The rest of the journey brought no companion so confidential, and Pixie
was heartily glad to arrive at her destination, and as the train
slackened speed to run into the station, to catch a glimpse of Esmeralda
sitting straight and stately in a high cart ready to drive her visitor
back to the Hall. Motors were very well in their way--useful trainlets
ready to call at one's own door and whirl one direct to the place where
one would be, but the girl who had hunted with her father since she was
a baby of four years old was never _so_ happy as when she was in command
of a horse. As the new-comer climbed up into the high seat the
beautiful face was turned towards her with a smile as sweet and loving
as Bridgie's own.
"Well, Pixie! Ah, dearie, this is good. I've got you at last."
"Esmeralda, _darling_! What an angel you look!"
"Don't kiss me in public, _please_," snapped Esmeralda, becoming prosaic
with startling rapidity at the first hint of visible demonstration. She
signalled to the groom, and off they went, trotting down the country
lane in great contentment of spirits.
"How's everybody?" asked Esmeralda. "Well? That's right. You can tell
me the details later on. Now, you have just to forget Bridgie for a
bit, and think of _Me_. I've wanted you for years, and I told Bridgie
to her face she was selfish to keep you away. If I'm not a good
example, you can take example by my faults, and isn't that just as good?
And there's so much that I want you to do. You always loved to help,
didn't you, Pixie?"
"I did," assented Pixie, but the quick ears of the listener detected a
hint of hesitation in the sound. The dark eyebrows arched in haughty
questioning, and Pixie, no whit abashed, shrugged her shoulders and
confessed with a laugh: "But to tell you the truth, my dear, it was not
so much for helping, as for having a good time for myself, that I
started on this trip. Bridgie said I'd been domestic long enough, and
needed to play for a change, and there's a well of something bubbling up
inside me that longs, simply _longs_, for a vent. Of course, if one
could combine the two..."
Joan Hilliard looked silently into the girl's bright face and made a
mental comparison. She thought of the round of change and amusement
which constituted her own life, and then of the little house in the
northern city in which Pixie's last years had been spent; of the
monotonous, if happy, round of duties, every day the same, from year's
end to year's end, of the shortage of means, of friends, of
opportunities, and a wave of compunction overwhelmed her. Esmeralda
never did things by halves; neither had she any false shame about
confessing her faults.
"I'm a selfish brute," she announced bluntly. "I deserve to be
punished. If I go on like this I _shall_ be some day! I'm always
thinking of myself, when I'm not in a temper with some one else. It's
an awful thing, Pixie, to be born into the world with a temper. And
now, Geoff has inherited it from me." She sighed, shook the reins, and
brightened resolutely. "Never mind, you _shall_ have a good time,
darling! There's a girl staying in the house now--you'll like her--and
two young men, and lots of people coming in and out."
Pixie heaved a sigh of beatific content.
"To-night? At once? That's what I love--to tumble pell-mell into a
whirl of dissipation. I never could bear to wait. I'm pining to see
Geoffrey and the boys, and all your wonderful new possessions. You must
be happy, Esmeralda, to have so much, and be so well, and pretty, and
rich. Aren't you just burstingly happy?"
Joan did not answer. She stared ahead over the horse's head with a
strange, rapt look in the wonderful eyes. An artist would have loved to
paint her at that moment, but it would not have been as a type of
happiness. The expression spoke rather of struggle, of restlessness,
and want--a spiritual want which lay ever at the back of the excitement
and glamour, clamouring to be filled.
Pixie looked at her sister, just once, and then averted her eyes. Hers
was the understanding which springs from love, and she realised that her
simple question had struck a tender spot. Instead of waiting for an
answer she switched the conversation to ordinary, impersonal topics, and
kept it there until the house was reached.
Tea was waiting in the large inner hall, and the girl visitor came
forward to be introduced and shake hands. She was a slim, fair creature
with masses of hair of a pale flaxen hue, swathed round her head, and
held in place by large amber pins. Not a hair was out of place--the
effect was more like a bandage of pale brown silk than ordinary human
locks. Her dress was made in the extreme of the skimpy fashion, and her
little feet were encased in the most immaculate of silk shoes and
stockings. She looked Pixie over in one quick, appraising glance, and
Pixie stared back with widened eyes.
"My sister, Patricia O'Shaughnessy," declaimed Esmeralda. Whereupon the
strange girl bowed and repeated, "Miss Pat-ricia O'Shaughnessy. Pleased
to meet you," in a manner which proclaimed her American birth as
unmistakably as a flourish of the Stars and Stripes.
Then tea was brought in, and two young men joined the party, followed by
the host, Geoffrey Hilliard, who gave the warmest of welcomes to his
little sister-in-law. His kiss, the grasp of his hand, spoke of a
deeper feeling than one of mere welcome, and Pixie had an instant
perception that Geoffrey, like his wife, felt in need of help. The
first glance had shown him more worn and tired than a man should be who
has youth, health, a beautiful wife, charming children, and more money
than he knows how to spend; but whatever hidden troubles might exist,
they were not allowed to shadow this hour of meeting.
"Sure, and this is a sight for sore eyes!" he cried, with a would-be
adaptation of an Irish accent. "You're welcome, Pixie--a hundred times
welcome. We're overjoyed to see you, dear."
Pixie beamed at him, with an attention somewhat diverted by the two
young men who stared at her from a few yards' distance. One was tall
and fair, the other dark and thick set, and when Esmeralda swept forward
to make the formal introductions it appeared that the first rejoiced in
the name of Stanor Vaughan, and the second in the much more ordinary one
of Robert Carr.
"My sister Patricia," once more announced Mrs Hilliard, and though the
young men ascribed Pixie's blush to a becoming modesty, it arose in
reality from annoyance at the sound of the high-sounding title which had
been so persistently dropped all her life. Surely Esmeralda was not
going to insist upon "Patricia!"
For a few moments everybody remained standing, the men relating their
experiences of the afternoon, while Esmeralda waited for some further
additions to the tea-table, and Pixie's quick-seeing eyes roamed here
and there gathering impressions to be stored away for later use. She
was too excited, too interested, to talk herself, but her ears were as
quick as her eyes, and so it happened that she caught a fragment of
conversation between Miss Ward and the tall Mr Vaughan, which was
certainly not intended for her ears.
"...A _sister_!" he was repeating in tones of incredulous astonishment.
"A sister! But how extraordinarily unlike! She must have thrown in her
own beauty to add to Mrs Hilliard's share!"
"Oh, hush!" breathed the girl urgently. "_She heard_!"
Stanor Vaughan lifted his head sharply and met Pixie's watching eyes
fixed upon him. His own glance was tense and shamed, but to his
amazement hers was friendly, humorous, undismayed. There was no
displeasure in her face, no hint of humiliation nor discomfiture--
nothing, it would appear, but serene, unruffled agreement.
Stanor Vaughan had not a good memory: few events of his youth remained
with him after middle life, but when he was an old, old man that moment
still remained vivid, when, in the place of rebuke, he first met the
radiance of Pixie. O'Shaughnessy's broad, sweet smile.