she looked from one to the other of her three big brothers. Jack's
manner was nervous and excited. Poor fellow! he was evidently dreading
the explanations which were in store. Pat was looking pale; he grew so
fast that he needed constant care. Miles kept handing her the mustard
with sympathetic effusion; he had a heart of gold and could be led with
a word, but it must be the right word, and woe to the housekeeper of the
future if she tried to rule by force! She smiled at him with wistful
apology, and Miles patted her hand affectionately under the tablecloth.
It was a pity when a sensible girl like Bridgie made an idiot of herself
by falling in love, but they all seemed to do it sooner or later, and
there was no use making a fuss, Master Miles told himself resignedly.
She seemed to have met this Captain Victor years ago, and to have
corresponded with him in India, but she had never mentioned his name at
home. How strange to know that Bridgie had had an interest beyond her
own brothers and sisters! Miles felt mildly aggrieved, but consoled
himself by the reflection that the Captain seemed a decent sort of
fellow with plenty to say for himself. He had been on active service
twice already, and though he refused details of manslaughter, gave such
a graphic account of tiger-shooting expeditions as made Miles's lips
water, and aroused rebellious repinings at his own hard lot in living in
a miserable suburb where the only sport to be obtained was the tracking
of a few superfluous cats!
When dinner was over, the two boys discreetly lingered behind while
their elders retired to the drawing-room, and Bridgie grew rosy red with
embarrassment as the door closed behind them.
"We wanted to tell you, Jack--" she began nervously. "I would have told
you before, only there was nothing to tell. There isn't now! At least,
I mean, it won't be for a long, long time, dear. Not until you don't
want me any more."
"Better let me try, Bridgie!" cried the Captain, laughing. He put his
hand on her shoulder in a proudly possessive fashion, and looked Jack
full in the face. "She is dreadfully afraid of what you will say, and
ashamed of herself for daring to think of anything but her home duties.
It doesn't seem to strike her that she has a duty to me too, when I have
been thinking of her for the last three years. I must explain to you,
O'Shaughnessy, that a friend wrote to tell me that your eldest sister
was about to be married to a man called Hilliard, and by an unfortunate
coincidence Bridgie herself had vaguely referred to coming changes in
her last letter, so I believed the report, and we have mutually been
eating our hearts, and believing the other to be faithless. There was
no engagement, you must understand, but I made up my mind about her the
first day we met, and she now acknowledges that she ran away because she
was afraid I might interfere with her home claims. You see, I have
already spared her to you for three good years, so I think it is my turn
now! My friends will tell you that I have been miserably dull and
surly, and for their sakes alone I feel I ought to make a stand."
"And Bridgie has been always sweet and cheerful. We have each expected
her to be sorry for us in turns, and never once suspected that she
needed us to be sorry for her too. Thank you, Bridgie!" said Jack,
looking across at her with a loving look which was the sweetest reward
which she could possibly have received for the struggles which had been
so gallantly concealed.
"It was my greatest comfort to have you all to work and care for when I
thought he had--forgotten!" she cried hastily. "And I have loved
helping you, Jack! Please speak honestly, dear, let us all speak out
honestly. Of course I want to be with Dick, but I want most of all to
do what is right--we all do--and the children must come first. You
can't be left alone, Jack, and there is no one else to take my place."
"Unless--" began Jack slowly. Bridgie looked at him in surprise, and
saw the red flush come creeping up from beneath his collar, touch his
cheeks, and mount up and up to the roots of his curling hair. "Unless I
married myself!" he said breathlessly, and at that Bridgie darted
forward and caught him by both hands.
"What? What? What? Jack, what do you mean? Is it Sylvia? Of course
it is Sylvia! And does she--Jack, what does it mean? Are you engaged
too? Have you been keeping it from me because you thought--"
"We wouldn't let you think you were in our way; we loved you too much,
old girl, so we were quietly waiting until--"
"I came along!" concluded Dick Victor tersely.
The three young people stood staring at each other for a moment, and the
tears brimmed over in Bridgie's eyes, but presently she began to laugh,
and the young men joined in with a sense of the happiest relief. Each
one had been thinking of the other, and putting personal hopes in the
background, and lo, in the simplest, most delightful of fashions, the
knot was cut, and each was left free to be happy after his heart's
desire.
"Oh, it's perfectly, perfectly perfect!" Bridgie cried rapturously.
"The boys adore Sylvia, and will be her devoted slaves; she is twice the
housekeeper that I am, and she has been so lonely, poor darling, without
her parents. Oh, Jack, how nice of you to care for her, and give her a
home!"
"That's what she says!" replied Jack naively. "Shall we send for her to
join the council? She ought to have her say. I'll run across--"
"No, no! Send Mary. I want to see her first--I want to see exactly how
she looks when she knows she is found out," Bridgie insisted; so Mary
was promptly despatched on her errand, and back came Sylvia, wondering
and excited, and not a little mystified by the presence of the tall
stranger.
"Master Jack has good taste!" said the Captain to himself as he looked
at the dainty figure and erect little head with its crop of curls.
"Rather an embarrassing position for the poor girl! Hope they break it
to her gently!"
But it was not the O'Shaughnessy custom to break news gently, or in a
circuitous fashion, and the moment Sylvia entered the doorway, Bridgie
flew at her with outstretched arms, crying incoherently, and with
sublime disregard of grammar--
"Oh, Sylvia, Sylvia, I'm engaged! That's him! It's been a mistake all
the time, and we are going to be married at once. We are all going to
be married! Dick and me, and you and Jack, and you are coming here to
look after the house! I thought I couldn't be married because of Jack,
and he thought he couldn't be married because of me, and now it's all
right, and we can all be happy. I congratulate you, Sylvia!
Congratulate me! I made Jack let me tell you, for I knew you would be
so surprised. Don't you feel too bewildered to take it in?"
"I do!" replied Sylvia, with much truth. Red as a rose was she, at this
sudden and public announcement of her engagement, not knowing where to
look, or what to say, yet with a consciousness of immense happiness to
come, and unfeigned delight at the happy ending to Bridgie's love-story.
Dick Victor came forward and introduced himself, and presently they all
seated themselves, and tried to discuss the future in staid, responsible
fashion. The Captain expected to be quartered in England for the
immediate future, but could not of course be certain of his ultimate
movements. He proposed that he and Bridgie should look out for a
furnished house, so as to have a home of their own and yet be ready for
such changes as might arise.
Jack anxiously questioned Sylvia as to the responsibility which would be
hers, and she professed herself only too ready to sister the two dear
boys.
"And Pixie--I should love to have Pixie!" she cried, whereat Bridgie
frowned, and fidgeted restlessly on the sofa.
"We will make definite arrangements later on," she said. "Everything
cannot be decided at once. The boys will be quite enough trouble for
you, me dear! They are as good as gold, but they will grow, and their
clothes wear out so fast, and since we came to town they've taken a
distaste to patches, and they want money in their own pockets, the same
as the other boys they meet. `If I give you some shillings just to
jingle, and show they are there, will that satisfy you?' I asked Pat
only last week, and he laughed in my face! It's hard to say `No' when
they smile at you, Sylvia, but you'll have to do it."
"I--don't--know!" said Sylvia slowly. The others looked at her
questioningly, and she turned to Jack with a sparkling face. "I was
waiting for a chance of telling you. Mr Nisbet telegraphed to Ceylon
about father's death, and I've had a letter from his lawyers. It came
last night, and I'm rich, Jack! Isn't it lovely?--really quite rich!
The lawsuit was settled in his favour, and he was coming home to settle,
and now everything comes to me. I can help with the boys, and some day,
when you are ready, we can go back to Knock, and live in the old home
again! I've been so happy since I heard, thinking that at last I could
do something for you too. You are pleased about it, aren't you, Jack?
Do say you are pleased!"
Jack's beaming smile was the best answer to that question.
"'Deed, I'm delighted!" he declared. "I'll spend money with any man
alive, and the more there is, the better I'm pleased. We will stay
where we are and see the boys settled, and let Geoffrey enjoy his lease,
and then we'll go home, and I shall probably have some savings of my own
to add to yours by that time, and not feel I am living on my wife. I'm
thankful you have the money, and I'm thankful that I knew nothing of it
before we were engaged."
"And so am I!" said Sylvia softly.
A week later there was a second conference, at which every member of the
family put in an appearance, and the question of the hour was, "Who
shall have Pixie? Where shall Pixie have her home?"
"I am the head of the family. It is the right thing that she should be
with me. Sylvia and I would both like to have her, so it is unnecessary
to discuss the point any further," said Mr Jack, with an air.
"I don't wish to say anything in the least unkind to Sylvia--you know
that, don't you, dear?" cried Esmeralda the magnificent, sitting amidst
billows of chiffon and lace, and smiling sweetly across the room. "But
the fact remains that I am Pixie's real sister, and she is not; and I
think a sister's claim comes before a brother's. Bridgie will have no
settled home, and I am at Knock. Anyone might see at a glance that her
home ought to be with me, under the circumstances."
"I want Pixie!" said Bridgie softly. "I want Pixie!"
And Pixie sat on the edge of the sofa, and looked from one to the other
with bright, bird-like glances. Everyone wanted her, everyone had an
argument to prove a prior claim; they were all arguing and struggling
for the supreme happiness of welcoming her into their households. It
was the happiest moment of her life.
"It's like Solomon and the babies!" she cried exultantly. "Ye'll have
to cut me in threes, and divide the pieces. Esmeralda shall have my
head, for the times when she loses her own; Sylvia shall have my feet,
because she limps herself; and,"--she looked across the room deep into
Bridgie's eyes--"Bridgie shall have my heart! It would be with her,
anyway, wherever she went."
The tears brimmed over in Bridgie's eyes; Esmeralda frowned quickly,
then glanced at Geoffrey, as he stood by her side, and softened into a
smile.
Jack stifled a sigh, and said gravely--
"Pixie has settled the question for herself. After that confession
there can be no more to say. Take her, Bridgie, but be generous and
spare her to us for part of the year. We all need you, Pixie--wise
little head, willing little feet, loving little heart--every single bit
of you. Come and help us as often as you can."
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's More about Pixie, by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey