elegance, such billows of satin, such lace, such jewels and nodding
plumes, were seldom seen in this modest suburban neighbourhood. She had
never before had any connection with a girl who had been presented at
Court, and the face which looked out of the photograph was as young as
her own--startlingly, dazzlingly young.
"Your sister? Really! How per-fectly lovely and beautiful! Is she
really as pretty as that? How old is she? What is her husband like?
Is she very happy? She must be very rich to have all those beautiful
things."
"She has more money than she can spend. Can you imagine that? I
can't!" said Bridgie solemnly. "I asked Esmeralda what it felt like to
be able to get whatever she liked without asking the price, and she said
it was very soothing to the feelings, but not nearly so exciting as when
she used to make up new hats out of nothing at all and a piece of dyed
ribbon. She is only twenty--younger than I, and as beautiful as a
picture. Geoffrey adores her. She has a dear little baby boy to play
with, and wherever she goes people turn round to look after her, so that
she walks about from morning till night in a kind of triumphal
procession."
"How nice!" sighed Sylvia enviously. "Just what I should like. No one
turns round to look after me, and I feel a worm every time I walk down
Bond Street among all the horrible creatures who look nicer than I do
myself. People say--sensible old people, I mean--that it is bad for the
character to have everything that one wants. Do you think it is so in
your sister's case? Is she spoiled by prosperity?"
Esmeralda's sister hesitated, loyally unwilling to breathe a word
against a member of her family.
"She is just as loving and generous as she can be; thinks of every
single thing that father would have liked, and makes a perfect mistress
of the old place. The people adore her, and are in wholesome awe of
her, too--far more so than they ever were of me. The boys get cross
sometimes because she expects us to do exactly what she wishes, and that
immediately, if not sooner, but it doesn't worry me. I agree with all
she says, and then quietly go my own way, and the next time we meet she
has forgotten all about it. She is just the least in the world inclined
to be overbearing, but we all have our faults, and can't afford to judge
each other. She has been a dear sweet sister to me!"
Bridgie smoothed the tissue paper carefully over the portrait and put it
back in its envelope. Then she picked up a smaller photograph from the
table, and her face glowed with tenderness and pride. "Now!" she cried,
and her voice was as a herald's trumpet announcing the advent of the
principal character upon the stage. "Now, here she comes! Here's
Pixie! Here's our Baby!"
Sylvia sat up eagerly and held the photograph up to the light. She
looked at it, and blinked her eyes to be sure she had seen aright. She
cast a swift look at Bridgie's face to assure herself that she was not
the victim of a practical joke. She pressed her lips together to
repress an exclamation of dismay. She had expected to behold a vision
of loveliness--the superlative in the scale in which the two elder
sisters made positive and comparative, but what she saw was an elf-like
figure sitting huddled in the depths of an arm-chair, with tiny hands
clasped together, and large dilapidated boots occupying the place of
honour in the foreground. Lank tails of hair fell to the shoulders, and
while the nose was of the smallest possible dimensions, the mouth seemed
to stretch right across the face. It seemed impossible that this
comical little creature could belong to such a handsome and
distinguished-looking family, still more so that her belongings should
be proud of her rather than ashamed, yet there sat Bridgie all beams and
expectancy, her sweet lips a-tremble with tenderness.
"That's little Pixie! Esmeralda gave her two shillings for unpicking
some old dresses, and she went into the village and got photographed for
my birthday present. There was a travelling photographer down for a
week, and it's wonderfully like her for eighteenpence. The other
sixpence she spent on a frame--green plush, with shells at the corners.
Esmeralda had remarks to make when I put it on the drawing-room
mantelpiece, and offered to give me a silver one instead." Bridgie
smiled and shook her head with an expression which showed that the price
of the green plush frame was above rubies. "No, indeed! It's not
likely I will give up Pixie's present."
"She is not very like any of you!" Sylvia said lamely. She wanted to
be pleasant and appreciative, but could not think what on earth to say
next. "It must be--er--very nice to have a little sister. She is in
Paris, you say. Will she be away long?"
"She is coming home for good in January. Geoffrey and Esmeralda are
going over to bring her back, and she will go on with finishing lessons
at home. We can't do without each other any longer. I feel quite sore
with wanting her sometimes, and she is home-sick too. I had a letter
from her this morning. Would you like me to read it to you to show you
what she is like?"
"Please do!" said Sylvia politely, but in reality she was rather bored
by the prospect.
It was one of Aunt Margaret's peculiarities that she insisted upon
reading aloud the letters which she received from old-lady friends, and
the incredible dulness of the epistles made them a trial to the patience
of her lively young niece. She stifled a yawn as Bridgie straightened
the sheets of foreign note-paper, and cleared her throat with
prospective enjoyment.
"`Dearest, Darling People, especially Bridgie,--I was gladder than
ever to get your letters this week, because it's been raining and
dull, and the mud looked so home-like that it depressed my spirits.
Therese has gone out for the day, so Pere and I are alone. He wears
white socks and a velvet jacket, and sleeps all the time. He told me
one day that he used to be very active when he was young, and that was
why he liked to rest now. "All the week I do nozzing, and on Sundays
I repose me!" I teach him English, but he doesn't like to talk it
much, because it's so difficult to be clever in a foreign language.
"`My dear, I never suffered more than when I first came here, and
Therese telling everyone how amusing I was, and myself sitting as dumb
as a mummy! I can talk quite beautifully now, and wriggle about like
a native. I'll teach you how to shrug your shoulders, and you hold up
your dress quite differently in France, and it's fashionable to be
fat. Last night Therese let me have two girls for _souper_. They are
called Marie and Julie, and wear plaid dresses, and combs in their
hair. I like them frightfully, but they are very rude sometimes,
saying France is better than England, and that we have big teeth and
ugly boots. Then they got angry because I laughed, and said England
always thought she was right, but that everyone else knew she was a
cheat and a bully, and that she was the most disliked nation on earth!
"And you are the politest," says I, quite composed, and at that they
got red in the face, for I was all alone, and there were two of them
in their own country.
"`When they went away they kissed me, and said they were sorry, and
that my teeth weren't big a bit, and I said France was an elegant
country, but you couldn't wear high heels in Ireland, or you'd never
be free of the bog. It's a pity French people don't like us, and I
don't think they always mean exactly what they say, but they make
beautiful things to eat.
"`Therese gives me cooking lessons out of school hours, and I've lost
my taste for coffee with grounds in it, like we had at Knock.
Everything is as clean as if it were quite new, and there is such a
different smell in the houses--a lonely smell! It makes me long for
home and you, and a peat fire, and all the people in the streets
speaking English, and never as much as thinking of the tenses of
verbs.
"`You are quite sure I may come home in January, aren't you, Bridgie?
You are not saying it just to pacify me? I'll tell you a secret!
Once I thought of running away and coming back to you in London,
because I couldn't bear myself any longer. I said to Therese, just in
a careless kind of way, as if I had only thought of it that moment:
"Supposing now that a young girl was in Paris, and wanting to run away
to her friends in England, how would she set about getting there?"
"`And she never suspected a bit, for she said:--
"`"Supposing that she lived in this suburb, it would be quite easy to
manage. She should rest tranquil until the family were in bed, and no
one in the streets but thieves and robbers, and then slip out of the
house and walk to the station. There would be no _voiture_, but
perhaps the thieves may not see her, and all of them do not care about
kidnapping children. When she reaches the station, she will take her
ticket for England--it costs but a few sovereigns--and she has only to
change twice, and get through the custom-house. If all went well, she
would be in London next morning, while the poor friends in Paris might
cry as much as they liked--they could not bring her back."
"`She seemed to think it quite easy, but I was afraid of the thieves,
and had only three francs in my purse; and that afternoon they were
both awfully kind to me, and Pere called me _cherie_, and Therese took
me to the circus. The clown is called August, but the principal one
is English, because they are the best. He made English jokes, and I
laughed as loudly as I could, to show that I understood. The other
people smiled with their lips, don't you know--the way people do when
they don't understand, but think it is grand to pretend. I feel so
stylish being English in France. When I come home to London, I'll be
French!
"`Esmeralda sent me a book and some money for Christmas presents.
Tell Jack to write me a funny letter with illustrations. How is the
poor girl with the bark on the road? We haven't a single animal in
the house, not even a cat. I miss them frightfully. Do you remember
when my ferret died, and I filled up to cry, and the Major bought me a
white rat for consolation? Health, and tons of love, darling, from
your own Pixie.'"
Sylvia chuckled softly from the bed.
"It's not a scrap like a letter," she said. "It is just like somebody
talking. What a jolly little soul! She seems very young, doesn't she?
Some girls of sixteen are quite young ladies."
"Pixie will always be a child," said Pixie's sister fondly. "There is
something simple and trustful about her which will keep her young all
her life. She is so transparently honest, that it never occurs to her
that anyone else can be different; and she is the kindest, most loving
little creature that was ever created. Don't you think she looks a
darling in the photograph?"
It had come at last, the dreaded question, and Sylvia tried her best to
combine truthfulness with politeness.
"She has very sweet eyes. It is difficult to judge when you have never
seen a person. She--she isn't exactly pretty, is she?"
"_Pretty_--Pixie pretty! I should think not, indeed!" cried Bridgie,
with a heat of denial which seemed singularly out of keeping with the
occasion. From the manner of her reply it was evident that she
considered Pixie's plainness a hundred times more _distingue_ than
Esmeralda's beauty. "She's the quaintest-looking little creature that
ever you set eyes on, with the dearest, funniest face! Father used to
call her the ugliest child in Galway. He was so proud of her, bless
him!"
Bridgie sighed pensively, and Sylvia stared at her with curious eyes.
So far she had made the acquaintance of but one member of the
O'Shaughnessy family, but it seemed as though they took the various
trials and vicissitudes of life in a very different spirit from the
people with whom she herself had associated. Instead of moaning over
the inevitable, they discerned the humour of the situation, and in happy
fashion turned the trial into a joke.
"I wonder," sighed Sylvia to herself, "I wonder where the joke comes in
in losing your hair. I suppose she would say it was so cool to be
bald!" Not even to herself would she put into words the deeper,
crueller dread which lay hauntingly in the background of her mind!
CHAPTER FOUR.
DREAD.
The foot refused to heal, and one morning a well-known surgeon followed
Dr Horton into the sick-room. The very sound of his name was as a
death-knell to the girl in the bed, but she controlled herself by a
mighty effort, and strained every nerve to watch the faces of her
attendants during the examination which followed. She knew that they
would keep up appearances in her presence, and so long as possible hide
the worst from her knowledge; but if she appeared unsuspicious they
would perhaps be less careful, and a stray word, an interchange of
glances, might show the direction of their thoughts. She lay perfectly
still, not even flinching with pain when the diseased bone was touched,
for the tension of mind was so great as to eclipse bodily suffering; but
the cool, business-like manner of the great surgeon gave no hint of his
decision, while Dr Horton was as cheerful, Whitey as serenely composed,
as on ordinary occasions.
The cage was replaced over the foot, the bedclothes put in order, a few
pleasant commonplaces exchanged, and the trio adjourned for
consultation. Trained to their work of self-repression, not one of them
had given the slightest hint of what was feared, but their precautions
were undone by the thoughtless haste of the watcher outside.
Miss Munns was hovering about the landing awaiting the verdict, and
trembling at the thought of the news which she might have to send to her
brother, when the door opened and the surgeon came towards her. Dr
Horton and the nurse followed, and before the door was closed behind
them an eager whisper burst from her lips--
"Can you save it? Must you ampu--"
Before the word was completed the surgeon's hand was over her lips,
Whitey brought to the door with a bang, and three pale faces stared at
each other in consternation. Had Sylvia heard? Could she have
overheard? That was the question which was agitating every mind. They
strained their ears for a cry from the sick-room, but no cry came.
Whitey looked at the doctor and made a movement towards the door, and he
bent his head in assent.
"Yes! Go in as if you had forgotten something. She may have fainted.
Poor child, it was enough to make her!"
Tears of remorse were standing in Aunt Margaret's eyes, but she waited
silently enough now while Whitey re-entered the room and strolled across
to the window to pick up the book in which she wrote the daily report.
She smiled at Sylvia as she passed, and Sylvia looked at her quietly,
quite quietly, and the dark eyes showed no signs of tears. Whitey went
back to the doctors with lightened face, and eased their minds by a
definite assurance.
"She heard nothing. She is lying quite still and composed. She cannot
possibly have heard."
They turned and went downstairs to the dining-room. Sylvia heard their
footsteps die away in the distance, the opening and shutting of the
door. The brown eyes shone with unnatural brilliancy, the hot hands
were clasped tightly together beneath the sheet.
"God," she was crying deep down in her soul, "do You really mean it?
I've been very wicked often, I've forgotten You and taken my own way,
but I'm so young--only twenty-one--don't make me lame! I'll be good,
I'll think of other people, I'll be grateful all my life. Don't make me
lame! Think what it means to a girl like me to lose her foot! I have
no mother, nor brothers, nor sisters, and father is far-away. It would
be so dreadful to be shut up here and never, never run about any more.
Have pity on me. _Don't make me lame_!"
It was a cry from the depths of her heart, very different from the
formal prayers which she was accustomed to offer morning and evening--a
plea for help such as she would have addressed to her dear earthly
father in any of the minor difficulties of life, but in this great
crisis of her fate she must needs go straight to the fountain of
comfort--the Great Physician who was able to save the soul as well as
the body.
All the rest of the day, as she lay so quietly on her pillows, she was
talking to Him, pleading for deliverance, setting forth pathetic girlish
arguments why she should be spared the coming trial. When the thought
arose of many others younger than herself who were leading maimed lives,
she thrust the memory aside as something which could not be faced, and
her lips refused to utter the words which she had been taught to affix
to her petitions. "`Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done.' I
can't say it, Lord. I can't mean it!" she cried tremblingly. "Not yet!
Forgive me, and be patient with me. I'm so frightened!" and even as
the prayer went up, the assurance came into her soul that the Heavenly
Father would understand, and show towards her the divinest of sympathy
and patience.
For some reason which she would have found difficult to explain to
herself Sylvia felt an intense disinclination to let her attendants know
what she had overheard. She perceived that they were more than usually
tender towards herself, and they on their part were puzzled by the quiet
of the once restless patient. She grumbled no more about small
unpleasantnesses--oh, how small they seemed! She was content to lie
still and think her own thoughts, and seemed to have lost all interest
in the ordinary events of the day.
Only once in the twenty-four hours did a smile light up the set face,
and that was when Bridgie O'Shaughnessy appeared for her afternoon
visit, and seated herself by the bedside. On one of these occasions, a
week after the surgeon's first visit, Whitey went out for, her daily
walk, and Sylvia watched her go and peered anxiously round the screen to
make sure that the door was really shut. Then she stretched out her
hand, and gripped Bridgie by the wrist. It was a very thin, feeble-
looking hand, but the grip had nothing feeble about it--it was almost
painful in its strength, and the brown eyes had a glazed misery of
expression which made Bridgie tremble at the thought of what was to
come.
"Bridget O'Shaughnessy, you call yourself my friend. Will you tell me
the truth?"
"I'll not promise that, me dear. I'll not deceive you about anything if
I can help it, but you are an invalid, and there are some questions
which you should not ask me. Only the doctor should answer them."
But Sylvia went on with her story as if she had not heard the protest.
"The other morning Sir Alfred Heap came to see my foot. He said very
little about it to me, and after examining it, went out of the room to
consult with Dr Horton. Aunt Margaret was waiting for them on the
landing, and they were not quick enough in shutting the door. I heard
what she said. To-morrow morning Sir Alfred is coming again.
Bridgie,--_is he going to cut off my foot_?"
"He is not, darling. He is going to give you chloroform and do
something to the bone to try to make it sound and healthy again."
"And if that fails, will he cut it off then?"
"He will operate again, and go on trying as long as he dare."
"And if everything else fails, then--"
"Yes, Sylvia," said Bridgie gently.
Downstairs in the dining-room Miss Munns had been consulting with Whitey
as to how the patient was to be prepared for the ordeal of to-morrow,
and by whom the news should be broken. Whitey had taken the task upon
herself with the unselfish heroism of her profession, but her pretty
face was worn with the strain of this long anxious case, and Bridgie's
heart had ached for her in her painful task. Now, in the midst of her
own agitation, she felt a thrill of unselfish joy that she had been able
to take one burden at least from those heavily-laden shoulders.
Sylvia knew not only of the ordeal of the morrow, but also of that
nightmare dread of what might have to follow. She had known it for a
week past, and had lain quietly on her bed with all the horror and
misery of it locked up in her own heart. Such restraint seemed almost
incredible to the outspoken Irish nature, but Bridgie's words of
admiration brought an added shade over the invalid's face.
"No, it was not bravery, it was cowardice! I was like an ostrich hiding
my head in the ground for fear of what I might see. I literally dare
not ask until it came to the last moment. Oh, Bridgie, what a week it
has been! Going to sleep with the weight on my heart; waking up and
thinking, `What is it? What is it?' and the shock of remembering
afresh! I lay and thought it all out; never to be able to run, nor
bicycle, nor skate, nor dance, nor even walk without crutches, to dread
going upstairs, to be cut off from girls of my own age because I could
not take part in their amusements, to hear people say `Poor thing!' and
look pitifully at me as I hobbled by. I've tried to be resigned and
take it like invalids in books, but--I can't! I feel desperate.
Bridgie, suppose it was you! How would you feel?"
"I should cry myself ill for two or three days, and then brisk up and be
thankful that if it was one foot, it wasn't two!" said Bridgie quaintly.
"That is, if I were quite certain about it, but I never believe in
disagreeable things until they have really happened. Hope for the best
as long as you can. You have clever doctors and nurses, and you will
have a better chance if you keep up your spirits."
Sylvia shook her head hopelessly.
"It's easy to be philosophic for someone else. I could preach
beautifully to you, Bridgie, if you were lying here instead of me, but
the suspense is so hard to bear! I feel as if I could not live through
another week like the last. Have you ever known what it was to drag
through the days with a nightmare of dread growing bigger and bigger,
nearer and nearer, to look ahead and see your life robbed of the things
you care for most, to hope against hope, while all the time your heart
is sinking down--down--"
"Down--until it is just one great big ache clouding out the whole world?
Yes, I know!" said Bridgie quietly. "I have never had a bad illness,
but my trouble came to me in a different way, Sylvia, and my time of
suspense was not days, but weeks and months, I might almost say years,
except that even my hopes died out before that time arrived!"
The two girls looked at each other intently, and the blank depression on
the invalid's face gave place to one of anxious sympathy.
"You mean, of course, that it was a mental trouble. Could you tell me
about it, Bridgie, do you think? I don't want to force your confidence,
but I am so interested in you, and it would do me good to be sorry for
someone beside myself. Was it a--love affair?"
"I cared for him, but I am afraid he could not have liked me very much,"
said Bridgie sadly. "I have never spoken of him except to Esmeralda and
one other person, but I don't mind telling you, dear, if it will be the
least bit of help to you now. We seem to know each other so well that
it seems absurd to think we had not met, two months ago.
"It was just someone I met one time when I was visiting, and when he was
ordered abroad he asked if he might write while he was away. I was very
happy about it, for I had never seen anyone I liked so much, and we
wrote to each other regularly for over a year. They were not love-
letters; just quite ordinary, sensible, telling-the-news, but there was
always one little sentence in his which seemed to say more than the
words, and to tell me that he cared a great deal. If a stranger had
read it, he would not have understood, but I knew what he meant, and I
used to skim over the pages until I came to those few words, and they
were the whole letter to me.
"Looking back now I can see how I lived in expectation of mail day, but
suddenly his letters stopped. When father was pronounced hopelessly
ill, I sent him a hurried note, saying that we should have to leave the
Castle, for all the money was gone, and from that day to this I have
heard no more. It was very hard coming just then, Sylvia!
"For the first few months I was not really uneasy, though very
disappointed. I knew that a soldier's life is not always his own, and
that he might have been ordered to a part of the country where it was
impossible to send off letters, but then I read his name as taking part
in some function in Bombay, and I knew that could be the case no longer.
I would not tell Esmeralda to depress her in the midst of her
happiness, so I just sat tight and waited, and the time was very long.