glances, and stared in incredulous silence at the little figure on the
sofa. She had pulled off her hat, and with it the bow of ribbon, and
the loosened hair hung down her back; her hands were crossed on her lap,
there were dark shadows under her eyes. She looked so small and frail
and childlike that Bridgie felt a lump rising in her throat at the
thought of help coming from this strange and most unexpected quarter.
She rose, and, going over to the sofa, took Pixie's hand between her
own.
"Is it the truth that you are telling us?"
"It is, then! The solemn truth! Every word of it."
"What made you think there was any need for you to disturb yourself?
What put it in your head to answer an advertisement at all?"
"Because I didn't want to be a burden to ye, my dear, after all the
money you've spent on me education!"
"A little midget like you to speak of being a burden! No one would
guess you were there if you weren't so upsetting! It's no use fifty
Mrs Wallaces coming to see me. Some other French lady will have to
amuse her children. This one is wanted at home!"
Pixie smiled composedly, and squeezed the clinging hands.
"I knew you'd say `No' at the start. So did she. She was first cross,
and then she laughed, and said it would be a long, long time before I
was ready to teach. But she didn't really want teaching, only someone
to be funny in French, and when she heard me telling tales, and the
little girls both laughing, she began to think she would love to have
me. You remember the stories you used to tell me, Jack, about the
Spoopjacks and the Bobityshooties? I made up a new bit, and they simply
loved it. It's two hours every morning, and only ten minutes' walk, and
Therese says it's no use beginning to be proud till you've paid your
bills. You would like me to help you, wouldn't you, Jack?"
"Shades of Mrs Hilliard!" muttered Jack, and shrugged his shoulders
recklessly. "She will have a few volumes to write to me if I say `Yes!'
You are bound to help me, Piccaninny, whatever you are about, but I
can't bind myself to allow you to go out governessing before you are out
of short frocks. It is Saturday to-morrow, so I shall be home in the
afternoon, and see this Mrs Wallace for myself. It's a bad scheme on
the face of it, but it's just possible it may be more feasible than it
sounds."
That was all the length which he would go for the moment, and Pixie was
content to drop the subject, secure in her conviction that time and Mrs
Wallace would win the victory. She was petted and fussed over to her
heart's content for the rest of the evening, and the story of her
various efforts to retrieve the family fortunes was heard with
breathless attention. She wondered why the listening faces wore such
tender, pitiful expressions, why lazy Pat flushed, and Bridgie went over
to her desk and spent a whole half-hour sorting out her bills. It never
occurred to her that her earnest effort to take her own share of
responsibility was a more eloquent stimulus than twenty lectures!
Next afternoon at three o'clock the two sisters and Sylvia Trevor
stationed themselves in positions of vantage behind the curtains, and
looked out eagerly for the advent of Mrs Wallace. Bridgie could not
divest herself of a suspicion that the promise might have been given as
the easiest way out of a difficulty, but before the half-hour struck a
well-appointed carriage turned the corner of the road, the coachman
glanced at the number on the door, and drew up his horses, when a fluffy
head peered out of the window, and Pixie cried excitedly--
"That's the thin one! That's Viva! I expect she howled, and they could
not keep her away. That's Mrs Wallace! Isn't it an elegant hat?"
Bridgie peeped and grew quite pink with excitement, for, truth to tell,
mother and daughter made a charming picture as they came up the little
path. Mrs Wallace looked almost like a girl herself in her becoming
hat and veil, while the golden-haired child wore a white coat and cap
edged with fluffy swan's-down. Sylvia retreated to the dining-room.
Pixie ran to meet the visitors at the door, and the voice that
exclaimed, "Bon jour, Mamzelle Paddy!" was in itself an augury of
friendship. The next moment they were in the drawing-room, and Mrs
Wallace was smilingly explaining the title.
"I am sure you must have been very much surprised to hear of yesterday's
interview, Miss O'Shaughnessy! `mamzelle Paddy,' as my husband has named
your small sister, has made quite a conquest of my little girls, and
Viva refused to be left behind when she heard where I was going. I hope
you were not very anxious about her absence yesterday?"
"Indeed I was not, for I took it for granted she was with some friends
near by. Please sit down, and get warm. 'Twas a ridiculous idea of the
child's to suppose for one moment that she could fulfil your
requirements; but she's the baby of the family, and has never been
thwarted, and such a kind little creature that she must try to help if
there is any difficulty. It is good of you to take the trouble to come
and explain, but indeed we have decided already that it is quite, quite
impossible!"
Mrs Wallace gave a start of consternation, and the smile faded from her
lips. She looked first at Bridgie, then across the room to where Viva
stood on tiptoe dragging at Pixie's sleeve, and reiterating, "Mamzelle!
Mamzelle Paddy, will you come again to my nursery? Will you tell me
more stories about those peoples in the lamp-posts?"
"Oh, don't say it is impossible!" she said softly. "I want her to help
me too, and I am so troubled about my children. Could she--could they
both go into another room for a few minutes, while we talk it over
together?"
"Certainly they could!" Bridgie raised her voice a tone higher. "Pixie
dear, go to Sylvia in the dining-room and take the little girl with you.
Show her some of your treasures!"
"I like cake!" remarked Viva pointedly. She skipped to the door, and
stared round the hall with curious eyes. "You do live in a poky little
house, don't you? My mamma's house is much bigger than your house.
Where does the dining-room live? Is there a cupboard in it that you
keep cake in? Is Sylvia your 'nother sister? Who is the man?"
The man was none other than handsome Jack himself, who was enjoying the
rare luxury of a _tete-a-tete_ with Sylvia Trevor, and was not too well
pleased by this speedy interruption. He frowned when he heard the
opening of the door, but when he turned round and saw the vision of pink
and white and gold, he smiled in spite of himself, as most people did
smile at the sight of Viva Wallace, and held out his hand invitingly.
"Hallo, whom have we here?"
"Quite well, thank you. How are you?" replied Viva fluently. She paid
no attention to Sylvia at the other side of the fireplace, but leant
confidingly against Jack's chair, staring at him with rapt attention.
His eyes looked as if they liked you very, very much; his moustache had
sharp little ends which stood out stiff and straight, there was a lump
in his throat which moved up and down as he spoke--altogether he was a
most fascinating person, and quite deserving of attention. "Are you the
papa?" she asked enviously. "My papa has got a brown face with lines in
it. He is very old. My muzzer is old too. She is talking to the lady
in the 'nother room, and she said I was to be amused. You are to amuse
me!"
"No, no, quite a mistake. You must amuse me!" said Jack solemnly. "I
have been out all day, and am tired and sleepy, so you must do something
to cheer me up. What can you suggest, now, that would be really lively
and entertaining?"
Viva reflected deeply.
"I'm learning the `Pied Piper of Hamelin'!"
"You don't say so!"
"Yes, I am. I'll say it to you now, from the beginning right to the
very miggle!"
"Thanks awfully. I should be delighted--another time. Not to-day, I
think, if you don't mind. I have rather a sore throat."
Viva opened her eyes and stared at the Adam's apple which showed above
the white necktie. She was trying to puzzle out the connection between
Mr O'Shaughnessy's throat and the Pied Piper, but the difficulty was
too great. She heaved a sigh, and hazarded another suggestion.
"You tell _me_ a story!"
"That would never do. I should be entertaining you, and it ought to be
the other way about."
"I'll tell you a story!"
"That's better. Go ahead, then. What is it to be about? Fairies?"
"No, it's not going to be about fairies,--fairies is silly. Giants are
more sensibler than fairies, because there was a giant once. There was
Golosher!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Golosher!"
"Don't know the gentleman."
"Oh, you naughty! And David killed him in the Bible. I'll tell you a
story about giants."
"I don't think I am interested in giants."
"Princesses, then, beautiful princesses, and cruel people trying to be
unkind to them, and princes running away and marrying them, and living
happily ever afterwards."
"That's the style for my money! Fire away, and let us have plenty of
adventure. I'll lean back in this chair and listen to you."
Viva moistened her lips, swallowed rapidly once or twice, and began her
story in a shrill, high-pitched voice.
"Once upon a long, long time ago, there was a princess, and she was the
most beautiful princess that was ever born. Everyone said so, and her
face was as white as snow, and her hair as yellow as--"
"Excuse me--brown!"
"No, it wasn't brown. Bright, curly, golden, down to her--"
"Then she couldn't have been the most beautiful princess in the world,
because I've seen the lady and her hair is brown."
Jack stroked his moustache with a look of lamb-like innocence, and
Sylvia could have shaken herself with annoyance because she could not
help blushing and looking stupid and self-conscious. Pixie's melodious
gurgle sounded from the background, and Viva cried severely--
"You couldn't have seen her, because she lived hundreds and hundreds of
years ago, when you were a teeny baby. Golden hair down to her feet,
and her teef were like pearls, and all the godfathers and godmuzzers
came to the christening and gave her nice presinks, only one wicked old
mugian who--"
"Pardon me! One wicked old--?"
"Mugian! He's a man what does things. They always have them in
stories--that the mamma had forgotten to ask, so he was angry and said
she should tumble downstairs when she was grown-up and be lame ever
after till a beautiful prince made her better. Oh, but I shouldn't have
told you that jest now. You must pitend that you forget I have told
you. So then the beautiful princess--her true name was Mabel, but only
I call her Norah because her hair was gold--"
Now it was Jack's turn to gasp and search in vain for the connection
between Norah and golden hair! It proved as impossible to discover as
that between a sore throat and the Piper of Hamelin, but there was
another allusion in the story which was too fortunate to be allowed to
pass unnoticed.
"The princess was lame, was she? and no one could make her better but
the prince? That's very interesting. Could you tell me, now, how he
managed the cure? It might be useful to me someday."
"Was your princess a lame princess?"
"I think you had better go on with your story, Viva!" Jack said
hurriedly. "Your mother may call you away before it is finished, and I
should be disappointed. When did the prince arrive on the scene?"
"It doesn't get to that yet. So the princess lived in a house where
there were no stairs. Only one day when she was walking through the
wood, there was a little house and she went in, and she said, `Oh, what
funny things!' and she went up them, and she tumbled down, and her foot
was underneaf, so she was lame. An' she lay on the sofa, and the queen-
mamma cried, and the godfathers and the godmuzzers came flying up, only
they could do nothing, and the king said anyone should have the land who
made her better, an' thousands an' thousands tried, an' at last the
prince came riding along on a white horse, an' he looked froo the
window--"
"Jack dear, will you please come to the drawing-room? We want to
consult you!" Bridgie's head peered round the corner of the door, her
cheeks quite pink, her eyes shining with excitement. She gripped her
brother's arm as he came to meet her, and whispered, "It's the most
extraordinary thing--she really means it! She is charming, Jack,
charming; I can't say `No' to her. Come and try what you can do!"
But Jack was not a good hand at saying "No," least of all to charming
ladies, and Mrs Wallace took his measure at once, and felt that she had
gained a friend.
"I am trying to persuade Miss O'Shaughnessy to lend your little sister
to me for a short time every day, to help me with my children," she
said, smiling at him under lifted brows. "I understand that you knew
nothing about her application, and when I first saw her I felt, as you
must have done, that the idea was preposterous, but Viva and Inda fell
desperately in love with her, and have talked of nothing else since she
left. I think I followed their example, and I am quite sure my husband
did. He thinks Mamzelle Paddy would be the solution of all our nursery
troubles, if you could be induced to spare her to us. I would be very
careful of her; I promise you that!"
Jack looked at Bridgie; Bridgie looked at Jack.
"I'd be delighted that she should help you, and it would be an amusement
to her to play with the dear little girls. If she might come as a
friend--"
"Oh, Miss O'Shaughnessy, how cruel of you, when her great idea was to
help you! She would be a most welcome friend, but I could not consent
to using her time without paying for it."
Mrs Wallace had approached this question before, and had discovered
that Bridgie was no more embarrassed by a reference to her poverty than
had been Mamzelle Paddy herself. "We should think any sum cheap which
ensured our little girls being happy and occupied, instead of crying and
quarrelling, as I am sorry to say they do now for the greater part of
the day. They are too young for regular lessons, but they already know
French fairly well, and would soon be able to speak fluently."
"I can't judge of Pixie's French, but her English is so Irish that it
was a stroke of genius to offer herself in the character of a
foreigner!" said Jack, stroking his moustache, and smiling to himself in
whimsical fashion. "Of course, she is quite confident that she could do
all you require, but you must not listen to her own account of herself.
If you offered Pixie the command of the Channel Fleet, she'd accept
without a qualm! If you want the kindest-hearted, most mischievous
little ignoramus in the world, Mrs Wallace, it would be waste of time
to search any farther, for you have found her already! She will keep
your children happy, and never say a word that they wouldn't be the
better for hearing, but it won't be the orthodox training! I fancy
Pixie was a big surprise to the English boarding-school when she first
arrived."
"But she left with the prize for being the most popular and unselfish of
the girls! Your sister has just shown me the books with the touching
inscription. If she can teach my girlies to be as sweet and helpful, I
shall not mind a few eccentricities. Two hours in the morning would not
take her away too much from home, and she would have plenty of time left
for her own music. Her ambition seemed to be to pay for her own
lessons, so if I gave her thirty pounds, she could go to a really good
master without feeling that she was overtaxing you. It would be such a
pleasure to me too, Miss O'Shaughnessy. I feel sure your brother will
agree, if you consent. Please say `Yes'!"
So it was left to Bridgie to make the final decision, and in after years
she used to wonder what would have happened if she had refused her
consent! It was a difficult problem, for to her old-fashioned notions
it was a trifle _infra dig_ for a girl to work for herself, and it hurt
her tender heart that the Piccaninny of all others should be the one to
go out into the world.
What would the dear dead mother have said to such a project? What would
the Major have said? What would Esmeralda think now, and, thinking,
say, with all the impassioned eloquence of which she was mistress?
Bridgie reflected earnestly on the questions, while Mrs Wallace watched
her face with anxious eyes.
The dear mother had never been able to resign herself to the happy-go-
lucky Irish customs, and had died before her time, worn-out with the
strain of trying to make both ends meet. When she looked down from
heaven with those clear angel eyes, would it seem more noble to her that
her baby should preserve a puny social distinction at the cost of a
purposeless life, or that she should use the talents which had been
given to her for her own good and the good of others?
There could be little doubt how the mother would have decided, and as
for the Major, Bridgie smiled with indulgent tenderness as she pictured,
one after the other, the swift stages of his behaviour if he had been
present to-day. Horror and indignation at the possibility that the
Piccaninny should be in subjection to anyone but himself; irritated
impatience that the O'Shaughnessys should be expected to pay for what
they desired, like any ordinary, commonplace family; chuckling delight
over the smartness of the child; and finally an even greater inability
than his sons to say "No" to a charming woman! Storm he never so
wildly, the Major would undoubtedly have ended by consenting to Mrs
Wallace's plea, while Esmeralda's wrath would be kept within bounds by
Geoffrey's strong common sense.
Bridgie sighed and looked across the room to where Jack sat.
"If it is left to me," she said slowly, "if I am to decide, I think I
will say `Yes'! She shall come to you for a month on trial, Mrs
Wallace, and we can see how it works."
Mrs Wallace beamed with relief and satisfaction.
"That's very kind!" she said. "I am truly grateful. I realise that
your decision is unselfish, but believe me, you shall never regret it!"
And Bridgie remembered that prophecy, and smiled over it many times in
the happy years to come.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
JACK'S DISCOVERY.
Pixie received the intelligence that she was to begin her new duties on
the following Monday with the unruffled composure of one who has
expected no other decision. She asked eagerly what salary she was to
receive, and was a trifle depressed to find that it did not run to three
figures. Thirty pounds sounded very little, though she had only the
vaguest notion of its purchasing value, but her ambition had been to
supply the whole additional sum which was needed for the support of the
household.
Innocent Bridgie had no idea as to what might be expected under the
circumstances, but Miss Munns, who knew everything, declared that the
offer was a handsome one, and ten pounds in excess of the ordinary rate
of payment. Still, as she sagely remarked, one could never tell!
People sometimes seemed very generous and pleasant-spoken at first, and
then turned out everything that was exacting and unreasonable. Several
young friends of her own had gone out as governesses, and met with
tragic adventures. Marianne Summers, the cousin of Summers' Celebrated
Snowflake Soap, was with a family at Rochester, and nursed a little boy
all through scarlatina, and when she had toothache herself the lady said
it was most inconvenient because a dinner-party was coming. No
consideration whatever, and the food very poor. She was never so much
as asked to have a second helping!
"Maybe the lady had so many to help that she forgot to ask her.
Couldn't she ask herself? It would have been more friendly than
grumbling behind her back," said Pixie severely. "When I go out to
meals with people I make myself at home. I went to _dejeuner_ with some
friends in Paris, and I was so much at home that when they had cabbage,
I remarked that I wished it had been cauliflower. They smiled, and
looked quite pleasant!"
Miss Munns looked over her spectacles, and grunted to herself. She
considered Pixie O'Shaughnessy a most uncomfortable girl, and was never
at ease in her society. She asked embarrassing questions, stared with
unconcealed curiosity, while her innocence had a trick of developing
into quite remarkable shrewdness at sudden and inappropriate moments.
Miss Munns recalled several incidents when the gaze of the childlike
eyes had filled her with a most unpleasant embarrassment, and declared
that not for fifty thousand pounds would she have that child living in
her house!
Bridgie was different. She was invariably anxious to hear further
anecdotes concerning relations and friends, and was such a docile pupil
in domestic matters, that the old lady had the felicity of practically
ruling two households instead of one. In the fervour of her resolve to
turn over a new leaf, Bridgie had made no reservations, but had placed
herself and her accounts in Miss Munns's hands, and from that moment
there was no drawing back. The weekly orders were supervised and cut
down, the accounts carefully checked and paid to the hour, the receipts
were endorsed and filed, so that they could be produced at a moment's
notice; extras were faithfully entered into the housekeeping ledger at
the end of each day, and the whole account balanced to a laborious
penny. When the penny was very difficult to find, Bridgie pleaded hard
to be allowed to supply it from her private purse, and could never be
quite brought to see that the result would not be the same, but it was a
proud moment when Jack surveyed the ledger on Saturday evenings and
wrote, "Examined, and found correct!" with a big flourish underneath the
final addition. Then he would stroke his moustache and twinkle at her
with amused eyes, as he said--
"Bravo, Bridgie, right to a fraction! I'll ask Miss Munns to take me in
hand next--since she has scored such a triumph out of you. Evening
classes two or three times a week, with Sylvia to sit by me and sharpen
my pencils--that would be a happy way of combining instruction and
amusement for the winter evenings, wouldn't it?" and--shades of
Esmeralda!--Bridgie smiled, and ejaculated, "You naughty boy!" in a tone
as far removed from fault-finding as it is possible to imagine.
Sylvia Trevor, however, being a young woman of spirit, was by no means
disposed to provide amusement for Master Jack or any other masculine
flirt. If any man wished to win her, she was worth wooing seriously, so
she told herself with a tilt of the pretty dark head, but when Jack said
one thing with his lips, beseeching Miss Munns to take pity on his
ignorance, and put him on the path whereon he should walk, and another
with his eyes, mutely inviting her to stay and flirt with him the while
he pretended to listen--then her pride was roused, and she determined to
teach him a wholesome lesson. She waited until Miss Munns had produced
half a dozen ledgers to demonstrate the elaborate system of book-keeping
by which she conducted her miniature establishment--until Jack had
seated himself by her side and was irrevocably victimised for the
evening; then she rose from her chair and said amiably--
"I mustn't disturb you. You will like to be quiet, so I'll run across
and chat to Bridgie for an hour, while you are away!"
The "running" was a polite fiction, for in spite of massage and the most
careful doctoring it would be many months before Sylvia could run again.
By walking very deliberately she could just conceal her limp, and now
as she turned towards the door she had a good view of Jack's petrified
glare of disgust.
The picture of him sitting by the old lady's side, while she prepared to
teach him what he himself knew a dozen times better than herself, was
too much for Sylvia's composure, and around the corner of the door,
where her aunt could not see her, she doubled up with silent laughter
and cast on him a glance of such mocking triumph, such sparkling,
dimpling, deliciously girl-like derision, as was more eloquent than a
thousand gibes.
Jack leapt to his feet; at that moment he would have given half he
possessed to have rushed after the tantalising creature, to have stood
over her, and watched her self-confidence give place gradually to
embarrassment, and the pink flush rise to the pale cheeks as it had a
trick of doing under his scrutiny, but, alas! the door was shut, and
Miss Munns's voice inquired soberly--
"Do you want the lamp? Put it on the mat, please. You can't be too
careful of lamps. If the oil gets on the cloth, nothing will take it
out!"