A romp with the children restored Pixie's elastic spirits, and brought a
revived wish for her friends' society. She leaned out of the window and
beheld a game of tennis on in obvious need of a fourth player, waved
gaily in response to a general beckoning, and tripped downstairs singing
a glad refrain. And then, in the corridor outside her boudoir, behold a
pale and tragic Esmeralda summoning her with a dramatic hand. Pixie
flounced, and a quiver of indignation stiffened her small body. A whole
hour of a lovely spring morning had already been spent in struggling to
overcome the depression caused by the scene at breakfast, and here was
Joan obviously preparing a second edition. Pixie was no niggard in
sympathy, but for the moment she had other views. Two charming young
men were waiting without in the sunshine, and any ordinary human girl
prefers the sunshine and masculine society, to a room indoors and an
hysterical sister. Therefore, being excessively human, Pixie flounced,
and looked bored and impatient. She entered the room and shut the door
behind her.
"What's the matter _now_?"
The answer was sufficiently unexpected.
"Pixie, if I die will you promise me faithfully to live here and take
charge of my orphan boys?"
"I will not!" snapped Pixie sharply. It was just what might have been
expected for Esmeralda to picture her own tragic death as the result of
a passing squall. Quite possibly she had been sitting for the last hour
picturing the stages of her own decline and the grief of the survivors.
Strong common sense was the best remedy she could have. "I hope to have
my own home to look after. And they are too spoiled. I wouldn't
undertake the charge."
"Somebody," croaked Esmeralda deeply, "somebody must look after my
boys!"
"Don't you worry about that. Geoffrey'll marry again. They always do
when the children are young."
This was deliberate cruelty, but the strain was severe. Stanor was
standing, racket in hand, gazing up at the window. The sunshine lit up
his handsome face, his expectant smile. Pixie gave another flounce and
turned impatiently to meet the next lament; but Esmeralda was silent,
her hands were clasped on her knee, and tears--_real_ tears--shone in
her eyes. It was a rare thing for Joan to cry; the easy tears which
rose to her sisters' eyes in response to any emotion, pleasurable or the
reverse, these were not for her. Looking back over the history of their
lives, Pixie could count the number of times when she had seen Joan cry.
The outside world vanished from her memory in response to that appeal.
"Esmeralda! _Darling_! You are not ill? You are not really
suffering?"
Joan shook her head.
"Quite strong," she murmured miserably; "too strong. Only it seems
impossible to live on in such misery. It's gone--the mainspring,
everything! I can't drag along! Thank God, Pixie, you are here! I
never could bottle up my feelings. It's Geoffrey--he doesn't love me
any more. I'm not imagining it--it's true! He told me himself."
"What did he say?" demanded Pixie practically. She displayed no dismay
at the announcement, being used to her sister's exaggerations, and
feeling abundantly convinced in her own mind that this was but another
example. Geoffrey was cross this morning, but five days' residence
under his roof had abundantly demonstrated that his love was not dead.
"Now, what exactly _did_ he say?" she repeated, and Joan faltered out
the dread words.
There was silence in the room for a long minute. Then Pixie drew in her
breath with a sharp intake. "The _bloom_!" she repeated softly. "The
_bloom_!" The beautiful significance of the term seemed to occupy her
mind to the exclusion of the personal application. She had a vision of
love as the apotheosis of human affection, a wondrous combination of
kindliness, sympathy, courtesy, patience, unselfishness--all these, _and
something more_--that mysterious, intangible quality which Geoffrey
Hilliard had so aptly described. Given "the bloom," affection became
idealised, patience a joy, and selfishness ceased to exist, since the
well-being of another was preferred before one's own; courtesy and
sympathy followed automatically, as attendant spirits who could not be
separated. Affection might exist, did often exist, in churlish,
unlovely form, giving little happiness either to the giver or the
recipient Love, the highest, was something infinitely precious, a
treasure to be guarded with infinite care, lest in the stress of life
its bloom should be destroyed.
Joan, looking with anxious inquiry in her sister's face, read there an
earnestness even exceeding her own.
"Oh, _no_!" cried Pixie strongly. "Not that, not that, Esmeralda. Not
the bloom. It mustn't go; it's too precious. It means everything. You
mustn't _let_ it go!"
"But I told you it _had_ gone. It's too late."
"No!" Pixie shook her head. "I know better. There's time yet, if
you'll be warned. Last night, when you were comforting Jack after his
tumble, Geoffrey sat watching you as Dick watches Bridgie. It can't be
all gone, when he looks like that. He has loved you, been proud of you,
been patient with you for--how long is it you have been married? Seven
years, and you need a lot of patience, Esmeralda! I suppose it's come
to this--that you've used up all the patience he has."
It said volumes for Joan's penitence that she allowed such a statement
to pass unchallenged, and even assented to it with meekness.
"I suppose that's it. For the first few years it was all right. When I
got angry he only laughed; then he began to get impatient himself, and
this last year things have been going from bad to worse. When he spoke
straight out it was easier; there was a row royal, and a grand `make up'
at the end, but now he's so cold and calm." Esmeralda's lip trembled at
the remembrance of the scene downstairs of the averted figure writing
stolidly at the desk. She stared before her in silence for a dismal
moment, then added sharply: "And what in the world set him off at a
tangent this morning, of all others? There have been dozens of times
when I should have expected him to be furious, and he's been as mild as
a lamb; and then of a sudden, when I was all innocent and unsuspicious,
to flare up like that! There's no sense in it!"
"It's always the way with men. You can't reckon on them," announced
Pixie, with the seasoned air of one who has endured three husbands at
least. "Dick's the same--an angel of patience till just the moment when
you've made sure of him, and then in a moment he snaps off your head--my
head, I mean, never Bridgie's. There's too much--bloom." She put her
little head on one side and pursed her lips in thought, with the
characteristic Pixie air which carried Joan back to the days of
childhood. "Now, isn't it odd, Esmeralda, how people cultivate almost
every good quality, and leave love to chance? They practise patience
and unselfishness, but seem to think love is beyond control. It comes,
or--it goes. _Tant mieux_! _Tant pis_! My dear, if I married a
husband who loved me as Geoffrey loved you, it would be the big work of
my life to keep him at it, and I'd expect it to _be_ work! You get
nothing worth having without trouble, so why should you expect an
exception for the very _best_ thing? And the poor man deserves some
encouragement. _I'd give it to him_!"
Joan's lips twisted into a sad smile.
"You understand a great deal, Pixie--more than I do, it seems, even
after seven years! I never looked at things in that light. I just
expected Geoffrey to keep on adoring, whatever I did. What made you
think such things?"
"Nature!" said Pixie promptly. "And, my dear, I'm clever at loving--I
always was. It's my only gift, and I _have_ studied it just as other
people study drawing and music. What you have to do, Esmeralda, is to
forget everything and every one else for a while, and comfort Geoffrey.
Don't make a scene and worry the poor man. Don't make a grand programme
of reformation, for that will put him off at the start. Just begin
to-night and be sweet to him for a change. If you feel temper coming
on, have it out on me! I'm used to you from a child, and if I get too
much of it I can always run away and leave you; Geoffrey can't. It's
mean to take advantage of a man that's bound."
"If he _wanted_ to go," began Joan haughtily, then subsided into tears
and helplessness. "Pixie! Pixie! It's so difficult! What can I do?"
"D'you need _me_ to tell you? Isn't it the _easiest_ thing in the world
to make love to your own husband, in your own house? Talk of
propinquity! Always ready, always handy, if you can't manage _that_!
My dear girl, the game's in your own hands."
"Can a leopard change its spots?"
"We're not talking of leopards; we're talking of women--and they _can_
bridle their tongues!"
Again Joan was silent. _Could she_? A great martyrdom, or heroic
effort, these she would have faced gladly, counting them a small price
to pay for her husband's love; but then how to subdue hasty impulses, to
keep a watch over her tongue--this seemed beyond her strength. And yet
the treasure which was threatened was of such inestimable value. It was
impossible to contemplate life without it. Human life is uncertain, and
though she would not allow herself to dwell upon such a possibility,
Joan had realised in her heart that a day might dawn when she would have
to part from husband or son. Death might come, she might have to say
farewell to the dear human presence, but never, never had she imagined
for a moment that she might be compelled to live on, having bidden
farewell to _love_! Geoffrey her lover, Geoffrey her husband, Geoffrey
the father of her boys, was it a fact or a dreadful nightmare that he
had sat, untouched by her appeal, and confessed that ... that...
Joan winced, unable to bear the repetition, and locked her hands more
closely on her knee. Pixie glanced furtively through the window.
Stanor had turned back to the tennis-ground and the three-handed game
had been resumed. She stifled a pang of disappointment and sat quietly
waiting for further confidences, but presently Joan said quietly--
"Thank you, Pixie. Now--will you go? I want to think. You've been
very sweet."
"More bracing than sweet, my dear; but it was what you needed!" Pixie
rose with an alacrity which the other was, fortunately, too preoccupied
to notice, dropped a kiss on the lovely bent neck, and walked quickly
from the room. Joan had had the relief which her nature demanded of
giving expression to her feelings; now it was best that she should be
alone. Pixie had done her best to help, and now sunshine and Stanor
were waiting! In another five minutes she was playing tennis as
whole-heartedly as though it were her only business in life.
Meanwhile Joan sat alone in her upstairs room, struggling with all the
force of her ardent, undisciplined nature to brace herself for the
struggle which lay before her. Prayer had become of late a mechanical,
stereotype repetition of phrases; to-day there were no phrases--hardly,
indeed, any definite words. In the extreme need of life she took refuge
in that voiceless cry for help, that child-like opening of the heart
which is the truest relationship between the soul and God. She sat with
closed eyes and lifted face, penitent, receptive, waiting to be blessed.
For the time being doubts were forgotten, everything seemed straight
and plain. Then, being Esmeralda, the wayward, the undisciplined, the
mood of exultation faded, and depression held her once more. The
heavenly help and guidance seemed far-off and unreal. She was seized
with impetuous necessity to act at once, to act for herself. Pixie's
proposals failed to satisfy her ardent desires. To wait weeks or months
for the reward she craved was beyond endurance. She must contrive
something big, something soon, something that would demonstrate to
Geoffrey her anxiety to please him. She racked her brain to find a way.
Poor, impatient, undisciplined Esmeralda! How little she dreamed of the
tragic consequences of that hour!