For the next week all went well. Pat's improvement, though slow, was so
sure that a definite date was named on which he should be allowed to
take his first few steps. The doctor grimaced to Pixie as he gave this
promise, as if to insinuate that the experiment would not be pleasant,
but Pat was prepared--in theory at least--for anything and everything,
if thereby he might regain his freedom.
Stephen Glynn paid daily visits to the flat, and, in addition, escorted
Pixie to various "sights" of the great city, in which, to tell the
honest truth, she showed but little interest. Music was a passion with
her, but of pictures she had no knowledge, and little appreciation. The
antiques in the National Gallery left her cold and bored, though she was
full of interest in what seemed to her companion the most uninteresting
men and women who were employed in copying the canvases.
When with the frankness of criticism which he had learned from herself
he rallied her on this inconsistency, Pixie's answer was
characteristic--
"One is dead, and the other's alive. The most uninteresting live person
means more to me than a world of pictures. That girl in the grey dress
had tears in her eyes. ... Did you see? She looks so poor. Perhaps
she wants to sell her copy, and no one will buy! There was a man
talking to the fat woman next to her as we passed through before. He
was writing something in his pocket-book. I believe he was buying the
picture, and the poor grey girl felt so sad.--If Esmeralda were here,
I'd make her buy her copy, too."
"It's a very _bad_ copy!" Stephen pronounced. Then he looked down at
the girl, and the transforming smile lit up his face. "All the same--
would I do instead of `Esmeralda'? I'll buy it at once, if you wish
it!"
The grey eyes brightened, beamed, then clouded with uncertainty.
"Really? Ought you? Are you sure? It may cost--"
"That's my affair! Leave that to me. Would you like me to buy it?"
"I would!" came back at once in the deepest tone of the eloquent Irish
voice, and at that Stephen strode forward, his limp hardly observable on
the wide, smooth floor, and came to a halt by the grey girl's side.
Then followed what was to one spectator at least, a delightful scene.
The surprise on the grey girl's face, the incredulity, the illimitable
content, as the tall stranger made known his request, took out his
pocket-book and handed her a card. Emotional Pixie had the softness of
tears in her own eyes as Stephen rejoined her, and they walked away
together down the long room.
"Well," he said smiling, "on your head be it! Now she'll go on painting
atrocities, and wasting good time, when she might be sweeping a floor!
It's against my principles to encourage the desecration of art."
"Why did you do it then?" Pixie demanded heartlessly, but next moment
she smiled a beautiful smile. "_I know_! Thank you! Never mind about
desecration. Art can look after itself, and _she_ can't! And even if
that particular picture isn't beautiful, you have given me another that
is, the picture of her happy face! I think," she concluded slowly,
"it's going to help me.--It will be a contrast to turn, to, when I
see--_that other_!" She sighed, as she invariably did, when referring
to those moments on the Liverpool landing-stage, but she shook off the
depression with a characteristic gesture, a defiant little shake not
only of the head, but of the whole body, and cried briskly: "Now let's
imagine what she does when she goes home with that cheque!"
At home in the little flat, music made part of every day's programme.
Pixie, seated on the hearthrug, would sing Irish ballads in a voice of
crooning sweetness, she and Pat would join in duets, occasionally
Stephen was persuaded to join in a trio, and presently, as the
performers became "worked up" to their task, they would recall one by
one performances of bygone days, and perform them afresh for the
delectation of their visitor. Pixie whistled a bird-like accompaniment
to Pat's deep drone; Pat, retiring bashfully beneath a sheet, whistled
in his turn not only an air, but actually at the same time an
accompaniment thereto, a soprano and contralto combination of sounds, so
marvellous to hear that he was compelled to repeat the performance
unmasked, before Stephen would believe in its authenticity. Fired by
the success of their efforts, combs were then produced, and, swathed in
paper, turned into wind instruments of wondrous amenability. Surprising
effect of a duet upon combs! Again, when towards the end of the week
the repertoire gave out, and "What shall we sing next?" to fail of an
answer, Pixie revived another old "Knock" accomplishment, which was
neither more nor less than impromptu recitatives and choruses. A bass
recitative by Pat, on the theme--"_And she went--to find some mat-ches.
And there--were--none... Tum-Tum_!" led the way to the liveliest of
choruses, in which, goaded by outstretched fingers and flashing eyes,
Stephen was forced to take his part. "_There were none!--there were
none_!" piped Pixie in the treble. "_And she went--and she went_!"
rumbled Pat in the bass. "_Matches! Matches_!" fell from Stephen's
lips, on a repeated high tenor note. Through ever-increasing
intricacies and elaborations ran the chorus, until at last at a signal
from the soprano it approached its close, the three singers proclaimed
in unison that "_there--were--none_!" and promptly fell back in their
seats in paroxysms of laughter. In the course of the last twenty years,
had he laughed as much as he had done within the last wonderful week?
Stephen asked himself the question as he walked home the night after the
singing of the "Matches" chorus, and there was little hesitation about
the answer.
A week, ten days of unshadowed happiness and companionship, and then a
cloud arose. Pat was not _well_; he grew worse; he grew seriously ill.
The knee itself had done all that was expected of it, but the first
attempt at walking, to which the poor fellow had looked forward as to a
festival, proved in reality a painful and depressing experience. Back
in his bed, limp with pain and exhaustion, poor Pat realised his own
weakness with a poignancy of disappointment. He had expected to be able
to walk at once, though not perhaps for any length of time, and these
few stumbling steps had been a bitter revelation. All these weeks of
confinement and suffering, and now a long and dragging convalescence!
Pat's heart swelled with bitterness and rebellion. Despite the presence
of Pixie and the constant visits of his friend, he was sick, sick to
death of the one small room, and the monotonous indoor life, and as a
young man successfully started in a young business, he longed with
ardour to get back to his work.
The world looked very black to Pat O'Shaughnessy for the rest of that
day, and atmospheric conditions did not help to cheer him. It was
raining, a slow, relentless rain, and in the air for days past had been
a rawness, a chill which crept to the very bone. Pixie drew the
curtains over every chink, and hung a shawl over the end of Pat's bed to
still further screen him from draughts, but Pat was not in the mood to
be coddled, and had that shawl whisked to the ground before one could
say Jack Robinson. He was curt and silent in his manner, and--rare and
significant sign!--partook of a fragmentary tea. Nothing was right;
everything was wrong; his patience was exhausted, and though he remained
studiously polite to his friend, with his sister he unrestrainedly "let
himself go."
"Don't wriggle, Pixie! ... Don't shout!--Don't tell us that story all
over again. ... Don't lean against my bed. ... Don't sit between me
and the fire!" so on it went all through the afternoon, which as a rule
was so cheery and peaceful, and if Pixie preserved a placid composure,
Stephen Glynn was far from following her example. He relapsed into a
frigid silence, which added but another element to the general
discomfort.
The final stroke came when Pixie lifted the despised shawl and attempted
to wrap it round Pat's shoulders, and was rudely repulsed, and told to
mind her own business and not be a fool. Then, with his air of _grand
seigneur_, Stephen Glynn rose from his chair and made his adieux. Cold
as crystal was his manner as he extended his hand to the invalid on his
bed, and Pixie followed him on to the little landing, apologetic and
miserable.
"You are going so soon? If you could stay and talk hard it might divert
him from himself. He _needs_ diverting!"
"I cannot," Stephen declared. "It's beyond me. After all you have
done--after all your care, to speak to you so rudely!--"
He had passed through the front door of the flat, and Pixie stood within
the threshold, her hand clasping the handle of the door, her face, tired
and strained, raised to his own.
"He didn't!" she cried quickly. "Oh, he didn't. It wasn't Pat who
spoke--it was the pain, the pain, and the tiredness and the
disappointment. They force out the words. Haven't you found that
yourself? But his heart doesn't mean them. He's all raw and hurting,
and I worried him. ... I shouldn't have done it! You must be angry
with me, not with Pat."
Stephen gave her a long, strange look.
"I think I--" he began, and stopped short suddenly.
"What?" queried Pixie, and there was a long pause.
"I--don't know!" he answered dreamily then, and without a word of
farewell turned away and descended the steps.
But he did know. In the moment in which he had stood facing her while
she pled her brother's cause, the secret of his own heart was revealed.
Never under any circumstances could he be angry with Pixie
O'Shaughnessy. He loved her; she was for him the one woman in the
world; with all the stored-up love of his empty life he loved her, and
longed for her for his own. That was the reason of his happiness during
the past days, of the extraordinary new zest and interest in life which
had filled his mind; of his content in Pixie's contentment, his anxiety
for her anxiety, his furious resentment when she was abused. And he
loved her. He loved her when she lapsed into her Irish brogue, and said
"Me dear"; he loved her when she assumed Frenchified airs, struck
attitudes, and cried "_Ma foi_!" he loved her when she was sad, when she
was glad, when she was youthful and mischievous, when she was serious
and old, when she walked beside him in the street in the hat with the
curling feather, when she sat on the hearthrug in her rose-hued dress
crooning songs in her soft, sweet voice. Always, and always, he loved
her; she had crept into his heart like a ray of sunshine lighting up
unused rooms; she had melted his coldness, as the south wind melts the
frost. He loved Pixie, and Pixie was going to marry Stanor Vaughan...
Stephen Glynn stepped shuddering into the clammy street, and away up on
the fifth floor landing Pixie still stood motionless, holding the handle
of that open door, repeating to herself dreamily that he would come
back, he must come back! He had never said good-bye!