creation, but her hopes went up as she heard that "very cheap," and she
asked the price with trembling hope, whereupon the show-woman referred
to the little ticket sewn on the belt, and said airily,--"Eight and a
half guineas, madam. Reduced from twelve. It really is quite a
bargain."
"Ye might as well say a thousand pounds!" said Bridgie hopelessly,
relapsing into a deep, musical brogue in the emotion of the moment, and,
wonder of wonders, the bored superiority of the great lady's manner gave
place to a smile of sympathetic amusement.
She was accustomed to customers who asked the prices of a dozen dresses
in succession, and then floated away declaring that they would "think it
over," never, as she knew well, to return again; but not one in a
thousand was honest enough to make a confession of poverty! She lived
in an atmosphere of vanity and affectation, and put on her haughty
manners every morning with her black satin dress; but at night she was
only a poor, tired, working woman, going home to a dingy lodging, and
dividing her earnings with an invalid mother and a family of struggling
brothers and sisters. Her heart went out to this other girl who was so
evidently a lady despite her poverty, and when Bridgie mentioned a
ludicrously small sum as the limit to which she was prepared to go, she
showed neither surprise nor the thinly-veiled contempt which is usual
under the circumstances, but volunteered some really useful information
in its place.
"You will not be able to buy any ready-made costume for that price,
madam, but there will be a special sale of dress materials on Tuesday
next. If you could be here quite early in the morning, and go straight
to the counter under the clock, you would find some wonderful bargains.
I should advise you to leave it until then, but perhaps there is some
other department to which I could direct you."
"Thank you, I'm dreadfully tired. Could we go somewhere, and have a cup
of tea?"
The way was pointed out, and the sisters mounted the stairs once more,
took possession of a little table in a corner, and leant back wearily in
their chairs. The room was crowded like the others, but it was
comparatively quiet, for the ladies were resting after the fray,
stifling surreptitious yawns, and sipping tea with languid enjoyment.
It was a long time before Bridgie could find anyone to attend to her
wants, and meantime the temptation of the parcels lying before her was
too great to be resisted. "I really must look at those gloves and the
lace ties that are wrapped up with them! I never had so many new pairs
in my life, but they were so cheap that I hadn't the heart to leave
them. 'Twill be a refreshment to gloat over them until the tea comes!"
She untied the string and complacently folded back the paper, but, alas!
what was then revealed was the reverse of refreshing, for, in some
mysterious manner, the gloves and laces had disappeared, and in their
place lay a fragment of dull, prosaic flannel, at which the poor
bargain-hunter stared with dilated eyes.
"F-flannel!" she gasped. "Flannel! It was gloves when it was made up.
What's the matter with it--is it witchcraft?"
"I'd call it stupidity, if you asked my opinion," said Pixie calmly.
"You've stolen a poor creature's parcel, and perhaps she wanted to make
a poultice with it. It will be awful for her when she goes home, and
her husband groaning in agony, and nothing to relieve him but two lace
ties! I pity her when she finds it out."
"She has stolen my gloves. I'm not sorry for her at all, and if she is
an honest woman she will bring them back at once and hand them in to the
office. I shall take the wretched flannel there the moment we go
downstairs, but I've a conviction that I'll never see my parcel again.
I suppose they got changed at one of those crowded counters. I don't
think I care for sales very much, Pixie; they are too expensive. We
will go straight home after we have had tea."
"We will so, and make haste about it. I wanted specially to be back by
four o'clock."
To Bridgie's surprise, however, ten minutes before the omnibus reached
the corner at which they were wont to alight, Pixie beckoned to the
conductor to stop, and announced her intention of walking the rest of
the way. There was no time to discuss the point, and as she herself was
too tired to walk a step farther than she was obliged, she sat still and
watched the little figure affectionately until the omnibus rounded a
corner and it was hidden from sight.
She would have been astonished if she had seen the sudden energy with
which Pixie immediately turned right about face and walked away in the
opposite direction, taking a crumpled square of newspaper from her
pocket, and reading over a certain advertisement with eager attention.
"`Wanted a French lady.'--I'm not whole French, but I'm half. Haven't I
been in their country nearly two years? `To amuse two children.'--I'd
amuse a dozen, and never know I was doing it! `And perfect them in the
language for a couple of hours every morning.' Look at that, now, it's
better than the jetted lace! Two hours wouldn't interfere with me one
bit, for I've all the day to do nothing. `Apply personally between four
and six at Seven, Fitzjames Crescent.' Only ten minutes' walk from me
own door, as if it had been made on purpose to suit me! And quite a
good-looking house it is, with real silk curtains in the windows."
She tripped undauntedly up the steps and pressed the electric bell, and,
all unseen to her eyes, the little god of fate peered at her from behind
the fat white pillars of the portico, and clapped his little hands in
triumph.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
PIXIE SCORES A SUCCESS.
A butler came to the door, a solemn-looking butler, with a white tie and
immaculate black clothes, but he seemed rather stupid for his age, for
he asked twice over before he could grasp the fact that Pixie had called
in answer to the advertisement, and then stared fixedly at her all the
time he was escorting her to the room where the other lady applicants
were waiting their turns.
Pixie gasped as she looked round and saw ladies, ladies everywhere, on
the row of leather chairs ranged along by the wall, on the sofa, on the
two easy-lounges by the fireside,--old ladies, young ladies, middle-aged
ladies, elderly ladies, shabby and dressy, fat and thin, but all
distinctly past their first youth, and all most obviously French. They
gaped at the new-comer, even as the butler had done, and she bowed
graciously from side to side, and said, "Bon jour, mesdames!" in her
most Parisian manner, then squeezed herself into a little corner by the
window and listened entranced to the never-ending stream of
conversation.
A room full of Englishwomen would under the circumstances have preserved
a depressed and solemn silence, but these good ladies chattered like
magpies, with such shruggings of shoulders, such waving of hands, such
shrillness of emphasis, that Pixie felt as if she were once more
domiciled in the Avenue Gustave.
The lady in the plaid dress, who occupied the next chair, asked her with
frank curiosity to recount then how she found herself in such a
position, and, being assured that she was indeed applying for the
situation, prophesied that it would never march! She turned and
whispered loudly to her companion, "Behold her, the poor pigeon! One
sees well that she has the white heart!" But the companion was less
amiable, and enraged herself because there were already applicants
enough, and with each new-comer her own chance of success became less
assured.
At intervals of five or ten minutes the butler returned and marshalled
the next in order to the presence of the lady of the house, but, short
as were the interviews, it was a weary wait before it came to Pixie's
turn, and she wondered fearfully whether Bridgie had taken fright at her
absence, and was even now searching the streets in a panic of alarm.
The hands of the clock pointed to ten minutes to six before the butler
gave the longed-for signal, and she smiled at him in her most friendly
manner as she crossed the room towards him. Without any exchange of
words she divined that he took more interest in herself than in any of
the other applicants, and also that for some mysterious reason he was
sorry for her, and imagined that she was making a mistake, and the smile
was meant at once as thanks and reassurement.
They walked together down the slippery floor, such a slippery, shiny
floor, that one felt as if skates would be almost more in keeping than
boots, and finally arrived at a cosy little room at the back of the
house, where a tired-looking gentleman and a bored-looking lady stood
ready to receive her. They looked at each other, they looked at the
butler, they looked again at the little pig-tailed figure, with short
skirts and beaming, childlike face, and their faces became blank with
astonishment.
"Bon jour, mademoiselle!" began the lady uncertainly.
"Good day to ye!" said Pixie in response, and at that the bewilderment
became more marked than ever. The lady sat down and drew a long, weary
sigh. She was handsome and young, but very, very thin, and looked as if
she had hardly enough energy to go through any more interviews.
"Then--then you are not French after all?"
"I forgot!" sighed Pixie sadly. She sat down and hitched her chair
nearer the fire in sociable fashion. "It's just like me to make up me
mind, and then forget at the right moment! I intended to let you hear
me speak French, before I broke it to you that I'm Irish and all my
people before me."
"I almost think I should have discovered it for myself!" said the lady,
looking as if she were not quite sure whether to be amused or irritated.
"But if that is so, what is your business here? I advertised for a
French lady."
"You did. I read the advertisement, but if I'm not French I'm just as
good, for I've just last month returned from Paris, and the lady where I
was staying was most particular about my accent. Over in Ireland I was
so quick in picking up the brogue that I had to be sent to England to
get rid of it, and I was just as handy with another language. If I'd
remembered to answer you in French, you would never have known the
difference between me and those old ladies who came in first."
"Old ladies, indeed! I'll never advertise again if this is what it
means!" sighed the lady _sotto voce_. She looked across the room, met a
gleam of amusement in her husband's eyes, and said in a tolerant voice,
"Well, then, let me hear you now! I am a pretty good French scholar
myself, so you won't find me easy to deceive!"
"Perfectly, madam, perfectly!" cried Pixie, gesticulating assent. She
found none of the difficulty in settling what to talk about which
handicaps most people under similar circumstances, but poured forth a
stream of commonplaces in such fluent, rapid French as showed that she
had good reason for boasting of proficiency. When she finished, the
lady looked at her husband with a triumphant air, and cried--
"There! It shows how important it is for children to learn a language
while they are still young. It can never be mastered so well if it is
left until they are grown-up."
Then turning to Pixie--
"Yes, indeed, you speak French charmingly. I congratulate you, and hope
you may find it very useful. You are so young that you cannot have
finished your own education. Perhaps you are going to school in
England?"
"'Deed I am not. I want to teach instead. My brother is a very grand
gentleman, but he's in difficulties. He has a fine estate in Ireland,
but it is let, and he's over in London trying to make enough money to
get back again, and that's none too easy, as you may know yourself, and
if I can earn some money it will keep me from being a burden on me
friends. I've answered quite a lot of advertisements, but there was
nothing really to suit me until I saw your own yesterday morning."
"I see! May I ask if your mother knows what you are doing--if you are
here with her consent?"
Pixie sighed at that, and shook her head in melancholy fashion.
"I've no mother. She died when I was young, and the Major's horse threw
him two years ago, and I've been an orphan ever since. There's only
Bridgie now!"
"Poor child!" The lady looked at the quaint figure with a kindly
glance, thinking of the two little girls upstairs, and picturing them
starting out to fight the world when they should still have been safe
within the shelter of the schoolroom. "I'm sorry to hear that.
Bridgie, I suppose, is your sister? Does she know what you are doing?
Would she be willing for you to apply for a situation in this manner?"
"Maybe not at first, but I'd beguile her. I'm the youngest, and I
always get my own way. I told Sylvia Trevor, who was staying with us,
and she was very kind, giving me good advice not to do it, but it is to
be a surprise for Bridgie to help her to pay the bills. If ye want
money, what else can you do than try to earn it?"
"But not at your age, dear! You are too young yet awhile!" Mrs
Wallace crossed the room and seating herself in a chair by Pixie's side,
laid a hand on her shoulder with quite affectionate pressure. "I
appreciate your kindly intention, but I am afraid it will be a good many
years before you are ready to take a governess's place. You saw
yourself what a difference there was between yourself and the other
ladies who came to see me to-day!"
"I'm more amusing! Ye wouldn't believe how amusing I can be when I try!
At school there was a prize which was given to the girl who was nicest
to the other girls, and they all voted for me, and I've got it now and
could bring it to show you if you liked. I'm not exactly clever, and
there was no chance for anyone else at the bottom of the class, but you
didn't say a word about teaching, except French, and I could talk that
all day long!"
"Yes! I should be quite satisfied if my girlies spoke as well as you
do. Your accent is charming, and you have just the air, but--but you
are so young--so ridiculously young!"
"So are the children. They'd like me best!" maintained Pixie sturdily,
and at that Mr Wallace burst into a laugh. His eyes had been twinkling
for some time past, and he had been stroking his moustache as if to
conceal his amusement, but now he made no more disguise, but laughed and
laughed again, as if he were thoroughly enjoying himself.
"Upon my word, Edith, I believe she is right! If you consider the
children's feelings, there is no doubt how they would decide. If you
want them kept happy and bright, now's your chance! After our earlier
experiences this is really quite refreshing, and I am beginning to think
your advertisement has been of some use after all. How would it be if
you interviewed Miss Bridgie--I didn't catch the second name--and if she
is agreeable, you might perhaps make some temporary arrangement!"
"O'Shaughnessy. It's Irish! I'm sure Bridgie would say yes, for it
would be occupation for me in the mornings, and so near that I could
come by myself. We live in Rutland Road, but the house is so small ye
would hardly notice it if you passed by. Jack says if he could get
London rents in Ireland, he'd never do another honest day's work while
he lived. You could put the whole place down in the hall at Knock
Castle, and never know it was there, and Bridgie says she knows every
blade of grass in the garden. We had the loveliest grounds at Knock,
all the flowers coming up anyway, and volunteers drilling in the park,
and the glass-houses full of ferrets and white mice, and tomatoes, and
everything you can think of. If I could make some money we should be
able to go back sooner than we thought, and Bridgie would be so pleased.
When shall I say you are coming to see her?"
"I have not promised to come at all. You must not leap at conclusions.
It is a most ridiculous scheme, but really--"
Mrs Wallace laughed in her turn, and going up to where her husband
stood, exchanged a few whispered confidences, some scattered words of
which reached the listener's ear. "Typically Irish! Preposterous! No
harm trying. What about Viva? So difficult to manage."
The discussion was still progressing when from above sounded a sudden
piercing cry, mounting ever higher and higher, the note sustained in
evident but determined effort. Footsteps raced across the floor,
followed by a bang as of some heavy wooden structure, a murmured
protest, and two distinct sets of shrieks, each warring against the
other.
Mr Wallace pressed his hands to his head, Mrs Wallace sighed, "Oh
dear, dear, dear!" in tones of hopeless distress, but Pixie cried
eagerly--
"Will I run upstairs and try what I can do? Will I make them stop, and
laugh instead?"
"You'd deserve the Victoria Cross!" the father declared, while the
mother hurried to the door, and led the way with rapid footsteps.
"They have been brought up by an Indian ayah, and this English nurse
doesn't understand them a bit. They _have_ trying tempers, there is no
use denying it, but they are dear little creatures _if_ rightly managed.
Oh dear, dear, dear! these dreadful shrieks! They go through my head."
"Let me go in alone. They will listen better if they don't see you,"
said Pixie, and walked undauntedly on to the field of battle. In this
instance it was represented by a remarkably handsome and well-filled
nursery, and the belligerents took the form of two little girls of four
and five, who were seated on the floor, dry-eyed, but crimson-faced from
the effort to sustain their shrieks. A box of bricks lay scattered by
the window, and an anaemic nurse leant against the wall in an attitude
of despair.
Pixie walked forward, seated herself on the floor immediately in front
of the children, and gazed at them with benign curiosity. There was no
anger in her face, no warning of punishment to come, her expression was
in such striking contrast with that which they were accustomed to behold
on such occasions, that from pure amazement they stopped crying to stare
at her in their turn. The moment was hers, and she lost no time in
using it.
"The fat one," she said, pointing gravely to the younger of the sisters,
"the fat one shouts higher, but the thin one,"--the eloquent finger was
turned towards the maid with the golden locks,--"the thin one keeps on
longer. You have both won! The prize is that I tell you a story about
the Spoopjacks, when they went to fight the Bobityshooties in the
Christmas holidays!"
Silence. Viva laid her head on one side and considered the project.
Inda pouted her lower lip, and burst into the story of her woes.
"An' I was jest finishin' ze house, and ze chimbleys was getting ready,
and she comed against me, an' I pinched her leg, and she throwed it
down, an' it was all spoiled, an' the dolls was going to live in it,
an'--"
"The Spoopjacks live in the lamp-posts. There are seven of them, and
they have tin whiskers, and they went to war with the Bobityshooties
because they ate all the muffins, and there were none left for tea. So
Nicholas Spoopjack bought six rolling-pins and a watering-cart, and
melted down his whiskers for guns, and they put on red gaiters and clean
pinafores, and marched across the park. The Bobityshooties were resting
under the trees, and all the little birds were eating up the muffin
crumbs. The Bobityshooties really live in the pantry cupboard, so that
was how they found the muffins, but they were spending the day in the
country, and Selina Bobityshooty said to her mother--"
"Is that in a book?" queried the elder Miss Wallace suddenly. She was
an exceedingly precocious young lady, and quick to note the unusual
style of the narrative. Sometimes the stories in books were about good
little girls with whom she had no sympathy, and even if the heroine were
naughty to begin with, she invariably improved at the end, and never,
never knocked down her sister's bricks. The Spoopjacks and
Bobityshooties were new acquaintances and promised well, but she wished
to be reassured as regards the moral. "Is that written in a book?"
"No, it's out of my head. There are billions and billions of little
girls in the world, and not one of them has ever heard what Selina said
to her mother. If you will kiss your sister and say you're sorry, I'll
tell you as a secret. It's awful exciting!"
"All right, I'm sorry, only you pinched me too--go on about Selina!"
cried Viva in a breath. She kissed her sister on the cheek, and fat
little Inda smiled complacently, and repeated, "Go on 'bout S'lina!"
Outside in the passage father and mother looked at each other with
sparkling eyes.
"My dear, she is worth a fortune to us!" cried Mr Wallace rapturously.
"She understands children, and they understand her; the girlies will be
as good as gold under her care. I'll tell Spencer to bring round the
carriage and send her home in state, and to-morrow afternoon without
fail you must strike a bargain with Mistress Bridgie!"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
VIVA'S STORY.
Pixie drove home in state, so puffed up with her own importance that it
was a distinct blow to find the curtains comfortably drawn, and hear the
echo of laughter from the drawing-room. In all the books which she had
ever read, candles were left burning in the windows to guide the
footsteps of wanderers from the fold, to say nothing of bellmen parading
the streets, and anxious relatives rushing from one police station to
another. Here, however, all was peace and contentment, and, incredible
as it appeared, no one seemed to have been the least agitated about her
prolonged absence.
Bridgie was perched on a stool in the centre of the fire rug, relating
the history of the day's shopping to the three brothers, and she nodded
cheerily at the little sister as she entered, and saluted her with
unconcerned composure.
"Well, dear, here you are! Tired after your long day?"
Pixie sank down on the corner of the sofa, and yawned with a nonchalant
air. If there was one thing which she loved above everything else in
the world, it was to make an impression and be the centre of attraction,
and it was not likely that she was going to let slip such an opportunity
as the present.
"'Deed I'm not tired," she said genially. "Carriage exercise was always
more to my fancy than walking about the streets. If we'd been meant to
walk, wouldn't we have had four legs the same as the horses, and if we
haven't, doesn't it show that they were meant to do it for us? So when
he said the butler should get me the carriage, it wasn't likely I was
going to refuse, and up I drove to the very door!"
Jack stopped short in the middle of crossing the room, Pat peered round
the corner of his chair and twinkled with mischievous enjoyment,
Bridgie's eyes opened as wide as saucers.
"Which door? What carriage? What romance are ye telling me? Haven't
you been with Sylvia since I left you?"
"'Deed I have not. What made you fancy I had?"
"There was nowhere else to go, and you had not come home. I made
certain you were with Sylvia!"
"It's a bad thing to be certain about what you don't know. If any
mischief had happened to me, it would be annoying to you to remember how
you were laughing with your back to the fire, while I was run over in
the street, and having my legs sawed off at the hospital."
Jack frowned at that, and put a quick question.
"Have you been walking about by yourself? I won't have it at this hour
of the night. You can find your own way about the neighbourhood in the
daytime, but I won't have you going into town by yourself, or even
across the road in the dark. London is not Knock, remember, and it
would be the easiest thing in the world to get lost. Don't let her roam
about without you, Bridgie!"
"'Twas only a step, and barely four o'clock!" Bridgie's forehead was
fretted with anxious lines, but Pixie nodded back cheery reassurement.
"Don't you repine about me, for I got on famously, and Mrs Wallace is
coming herself to see you in the afternoon. I've engaged myself as a
French lady to amuse the children, and you shall have the money to pay
the bills. It was an advertisement in the paper, and you had to call
between four and six, so I didn't want you to know before everything was
settled. I don't know how much it will be, but Mr Wallace said I was
worth a fortune, because I made them stop howling. There are only two,
but outside the door you would think they were a dozen, and I made them
laugh, and they sent me home in a carriage."