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Love Affairs of Pixie

<h3>Chapter Eighteen.</h3> <h4>“I will be True.”</h4> Stephen Glynn’s dreaded interview with his nephew was a typical example of the unexpectedness of events, for instead of the indignant opposition which he had feared, his proposition was listened to in silence, and accepted with an alacrity, which was almost more disconcerting than revolt. In truth Stanor saw in the proposal an escape from what had proved a disappointing and humiliating position. His pride had been hurt by the attitude of Pixie’s relatives, and he could not imagine himself visiting at their houses with any degree of enjoyment. A dragging engagement in England would therefore be a trying experience to all concerned, and it seemed a very good way out of the difficulty to pass the time of waiting abroad. From his own point of view, moreover, he was relieved not to begin his business life in London, where so far he had been free to pursue his pleasures only. To be cooped up in a dull city office, while but a mile or two away his friends were taking part in the social functions of the season, would be an exasperating experience, whereas in New York he would be troubled by no such comparisons, but would find much to enjoy in the novelty of his surroundings. Two years would soon pass, and at the end he would come home to an assured position, marry Pixie, and live happily ever after. He sat gazing thoughtfully into space, the fingers of his right hand slowly stroking his chin, a picture of handsome, young manhood, while the deep blue eyes of Stephen Glynn watched him intently from across the room. A long minute of silence; then the two pairs of eyes met, and Stanor found himself flushing with a discomfort as acute as mysterious. He straightened himself, and put a hasty question— “What does Pixie say?” “Miss O’Shaughnessy was—” Stephen hesitated over the word—“she seemed to think that my wishes should have weight. She will consent to anything that seems for your good. She said that two years would quickly pass.” Stanor frowned. The thought had passed through his own brain, but no man could approve of such sentiments on the part of a fiancée. There was an edge of irritation in his voice— “Of course your wishes should be considered. I don’t need any one to teach me that. I am quite willing to go to America and do my best. I shall be glad of the change, but it’s nonsense to talk of not being bound. We are bound! We need not correspond regularly, if you make a point of that. I don’t think much of letters in any case. Writing once a week, or once in two or three months, can make no difference. There’s only one thing that counts!” Stephen assented gravely. “Just so. From what I have seen of Miss O’Shaughnessy, I realise that her only hope of happiness is to marry a man who can give her a whole-hearted love.” Stanor’s glance held a mingling of surprise and displeasure—surprise that the Runkle should offer any opinion at all on matters sentimental; displeasure, that any one should dictate to him concerning Pixie’s welfare. He switched the conversation back to more practical matters. “When shall I start? The sooner the better. If the post is open there is no object in wasting time.” His face lit up with sudden animation. “I say! Could we manage it in a fortnight, should you think? Miss Ward is sailing by the ‘Louisiana,’ and it would be topping if I could go by the same boat. I might wire to-day about a berth.” “Who is Miss Ward?” “Honor Ward—an American. Awfully jolly! No end of an heiress! I’ve met her a good deal this year, and she was staying at the Hilliards’ at the time of the accident. Awfully fond of Pixie, and a real good sort!” He laughed shortly.—“We ought to go out together, for we are mentally in the same boat. She had intended to stay over the summer, but ... her romance has gone wrong too!” “Indeed!” Stephen was not interested in Miss Ward’s romance, but he made no objection to the sending of a wire to the Liverpool office of the steamship company, and before evening the berth was secured and Stanor’s departure definitely dated. “I’ll spend the rest of the time with Pixie,” was Stanor’s first determination, but each hour that passed brought with it a recollection of some new duty which must needs be performed. One cannot leave one’s native land, even for a couple of years, without a goodly amount of preparation and leave-taking, and the time allotted to Pixie dwindled down to a few hasty visits of a few hours’ duration, when the lovers sat together in the peacock walk, and talked, and built castles in the air, and laughed, and sighed, and occasionally indulged in a little, mild sparring, as very youthful lovers are apt to do. “I must say you are uncommonly complacent about my going! A fellow hardly expects the girl he’s engaged to, to be in such uproarious spirits just on the eve of their separation,” Stanor would grumble suddenly at the end of one of his fiancée’s mirthful sallies, whereupon Pixie, her vanity hurt by his want of appreciation, would snap out a quick retort. “If I’m sad you want me to be glad, and if I’m glad you’re annoyed that I’m not sad! There’s no pleasing you! You ought to be thankful that I’m so strong and self-controlled. ... Would it make it easier; if I were hanging round your neck in hysterics?” “Oh, bar hysterics! But a tear or two now and then... Suppose it was Bridgie who was going instead of me?—would you be as strong and self-controlled?” “If Bridgie were going I’d ... I’d jump—” In the midst of her passionate declaration Pixie drew herself up, shot a frightened glance, and concluded lamely, “I’d ... be very much distressed!” “That’s not what you were going to say. You were going to say that you’d jump into the water and swim after her, or some such nonsense. You can be perfectly cool and calm about my going, but when it comes to Bridgie—” “If it’ll please you better, I’ll begin to howl this minute! I don’t often, but when I do, it seems as if I could never stop. I thought,” Pixie added reproachfully, “when a girl was engaged the man thought her perfect, and everything she did, and she sat listening while he sang her praises from morn to night. But you find fault—” “I don’t call it finding fault to wish you would show more feeling! It’s the best sort of compliment, if you could only see it.” “I like my compliments undiluted, not wrapped up in reproaches, like powder in jam. Besides, you’re fairly complacent yourself! I heard you telling Geoffrey that you expected to have a real good time.” “And suppose I did? What about that? Would you prefer me to be lonely, and miserable?” “Oh dear!” cried Pixie poignantly; “we’re quarrelling! Whose fault was it? Was it mine? I’m sorry, Stanor. Don’t let’s quarrel! I want you to be happy. Could I love you if I didn’t do that? I want it more than anything else. Honor is coming to-morrow, and I shall ask her to look after you for me. She knows so many people, and is so rich that she has the power to help. She will be glad to have you so near. Why is she going home so soon, Stanor? I thought—” “So did we all, but it’s fallen through somehow. I met Carr in town looking the picture of woe, but, naturally, he didn’t vouchsafe any explanation. Honor will probably unburden herself to you to-morrow.” “She will. If she doesn’t I shall ask her,” said Pixie calmly. “I’m crossed in love myself, so I can understand. It’s no use trying to sympathise till you’ve had a taste of the trouble yourself. Has it ever occurred to you to notice the mad ways most people set about sympathising? Sticking needles all over you while they’re trying to be kind. Sympathising is an art, you know, and you have to adapt it to each person. Some like a little and some like a lot, and some like cheering up, and others want you to cry with them and make the worst of everything, and then it’s off their minds and they perk up. Bridgie and I used to think sometimes of hiring ourselves out as professional sympathisers, for there seems such a lack of people who can do it properly.” “Suppose you give me a demonstration now! You haven’t been too generous in that respect, Pixie.” Pixie looked at him, her head on one side, her eyes very intent and serious. “You don’t need it,” she said simply, and Stanor looked hurt and discomfited, and cast about in his mind for a convincing retort which should prove beyond doubt the pathos of his position, failed to find it, and acknowledged unwillingly to himself that as a matter of fact he was very well satisfied with the way in which things were going. Pixie was right—she usually was right; it might, perhaps, be more agreeable if on occasions she could be judiciously blind! He adopted the pained and dignified air which experience had taught him was the surest method of softening Pixie’s heart, and in less than a minute she was hanging on his arm and contradicting all her former statements. Stanor was very much in love as he travelled back to town that day, and the two years of waiting seemed unbearably long. Perhaps, if he got on unusually well, the Runkle might be induced to shorten the probation. He would sound him at the end of the first year. The next day Honor Ward made a farewell visit to the Hall, and took lunch with the family in the panelled dining-room, where she had joined in many merry gatherings a few weeks before. Pixie saw the brown eyes flash a quick glance at the place which had been allotted to Robert Carr, but except for that glance there was no sign of anything unusual in either looks or manner. Honor was as neat, as composed, as assured in manner as in her happiest moments, and the flow of her conversation was in no wise moderated. Her hurried departure was explained by a casual “I guessed I’d better,” which Mr and Mrs Hilliard accepted as sufficient reason for a girl who had no ties, and more money than she knew how to use. Even Pixie’s lynx-eyes failed to descry any sign of heart-break. But when the meal was over and the two girls retired upstairs for a private chat, Honor’s jaunty manners fell from her like a cloak, and she crouched in a corner of the sofa, looking suddenly tired and worn. For the moment, however, it was not of her own affairs that she elected to speak. “Pat-ricia,” she began suddenly, turning her honey-coloured eyes on her friend’s face with a penetrating gaze, “I guess this is about the last real talk you and I are going to get for a good long spell. There’s no time for fluttering round the point. What I’ve got in my mind I’m going to say! What in the land made you get engaged to Stanor Vaughan?” “Because he asked me, of course!” replied Pixie readily, and the American girl gave a shrug of impatience. “If another man had asked you, then, it would have been just the same. You would have accepted him for, the same reason!” Pixie’s head reared proudly; her eyes sent out a flash. “That’s horrid, and you meant it to be! I shan’t answer your questions if you’re going to be rude.” “I’m not rude, Patricia O’Shaughnessy. You’re a real sweet girl, and I want you should be as happy as you deserve, which you certainly won’t be if you don’t take the trouble to understand your own heart. What’s all this nonsense about being bound and not bound, and waiting for two years without writing, he on one side of the ocean, and you on another? I can understand an old uncle proposing it—it’s just the sort of scheme an old uncle would propose—but it won’t work out, Patricia, you take my word for that!” “Thank you, my dear, I prefer to take my own; and he’s not old. He has the most beautiful eyes you ever beheld. What do you suppose Stanor would say if he knew you were talking to me like this?” “I’m not saying a word against Stanor! Who could say a word against such an elegant creature? He’s been a good friend to me, and he’s going to make a first-rate man when he gets to work, and has something to think about besides his beautiful self. America’ll knock the nonsense out of him. At the end of two years, it will be another man who comes home, a man instead of a boy, just as you will probably be a woman instead of a girl. It’s the most critical time in life, when that change is taking place, and you’d better believe I know what I’m talking about. If I were in your place I’d move mountains, Patricia, if mountains had to be moved, but I’d make sure that the man I loved didn’t go through it apart from me!” “But if the mountain happened to be an uncle, and the uncle had done everything, and was willing to go on doing everything, and was older and wiser, and knew better than you? Oh, dearie me,” concluded Pixie impatiently, “everybody seems against me! I’m lectured and thwarted on every side, I’ve not been brought up to it, and it’s most depressing. And it’s not a bit of good, either; it’s my own life, and I shall do as I like. And what about yourself, me dear? You are very brave about lecturing me. Suppose I take a turn! Why are you going back to America and leaving Robert Carr behind? What have you been doing to him?” “I asked him to marry me, and he refused.” Pixie sat stunned with surprise and consternation. Honor’s voice had been flat and level as usual, not a break or quiver had broken its flow, but there was a pallor round the lips, a sudden sharpening of the features, which spoke eloquently enough, and smote the hearer to the heart. “Oh, me dear, forgive me!” she cried deeply. “I’m ashamed. Don’t say any more. I’d no right to ask.” “I meant to tell you. I’d have told you in any case. You guessed how it was when we were here. You can’t be in love like that and not show it.—I thought of him all day; I dreamt of him all night ... when he was out of the room I was wretched; when he came in I knew it by instinct; before I could see him I knew it! In a crowded room I could hear every word he said, see every movement. ... When I was sitting alone, and heard his voice in the distance, my heart leapt—it made me quite faint. I loved him, Pixie!” Pixie sat staring with startled gaze. She did not speak, and for a moment it seemed that her thoughts had wandered from the story on hand, for her eyes had an inward look, as though she were puzzling out a problem which concerned herself alone. She started slightly as Honor again began to speak, and straightened herself with a quick air of attention. “Sometimes I thought he loved me too, but he was not the sort of man who would choose to marry an heiress. My money stood between us. So I ... I tried to make it easier by showing him ... how I felt. When we went back to London he said good-bye, and refused my invitations, but I met him by accident, and,” she straightened herself with a gesture of pride, “I am not ashamed of what I did. It would have been folly to sacrifice happiness for the sake of a convention ... I asked him—” “And?” “He cared!” Honor said softly. “I had my hour, Pixie, but it was only an hour, for at the end we got to business, and that wrecked it all. I’ve told you about my factory. Over here in England, when people have looked at me through monocles, there have been times when I’ve been ashamed of pickles, but at home I’m proud! Father started as a working lad, and built up that great business, brick by brick. Three thousand ‘hands’ are employed in the factory, but they were never ‘hands’ to him, Patricia, they were souls! He’d been a working man himself, and there was not one thing in their lives he didn’t know and understand. One of the first things I can remember, right away back in my childhood, is being taken to a window to see those men stream past, and being told they were my friends and that I was to take care of them. He had no airs, my pappa; he never gave himself frills, or pretended to be anything different from what he was—there was only one thing he was proud of, and that was that his men were the happiest and most contented in the States. When he died he left me more than his money, he left me his men!” Honor paused, her eyes bright with suppressed feeling, and Pixie, keen as ever to appreciate an emotional situation, drew a fluttering breath. “Yes, yes! How beautiful! How fine! All those lives ... Honor, aren’t you proud?” “I’ve told you before, my dear. The best part of me is proud and glad, but we’re pretty complex creatures, and I guess a big duty is bound to come up against a pleasure now and then. At the moment I was speaking of, it was one man against three thousand, and the one man weighed down the scale.” “But ... but I don’t understand.” Pixie puckered her brows in bewilderment. “Why couldn’t you have both?” “I thought I could, Patricia. I calculated, as my work was full-fledged, and his had hardly begun, that he would be willing to come over with me. It’s a pretty stiff proposition for a woman to run a big show like that, and I’d have been glad of help. He allowed I’d have to sell up and keep house for him in England, and make a splash among the big-wigs to help him in his career. He put it as politely as he knew how, but he made me understand that it was beneath his dignity to live in America and work in pickles, and he guessed if I sold out I could find a buyer who would look after the men as well as or better than I did myself. So—” she waved her small white hands—“there we were! He wouldn’t, and I couldn’t! That’s the truth, Patricia. I could not! I don’t dispute that another person might not manage as well as I, that’s not the question. It’s my work, it’s my responsibility; those men were left to me, and I can’t desert. So the dream’s over, my dear, and I’m going back to real hard life.” Pixie nodded, the big tears standing in her eyes. “I should have done the same. He didn’t love you enough.” Honor gave a quivering laugh. “He said the same of me. Couldn’t seem to see any difference between the two ‘give-ups’; but there is a difference, Patricia. Well, my dear, that’s the end of it. We said good-bye, and there’s no reason why we should meet again. ... Our lives lie in different places, and it’s no use trying to join them.” “Honor, dear, are you very unhappy?” Honor’s neat little features puckered in a grimace. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say I feel exactly gay, Patricia, but don’t you worry about me. I’ll come up smiling. You wouldn’t have me pine for the sake of a man who wouldn’t have me when he got the chance? I guess Honor P Ward has too much grit for that!” Pixie nodded slowly. “But you mustn’t be too hard on him, Honor—It’s natural to want to live in one’s own country, and he loves his work just as you do yours. He’ll be a judge some day—chins like that always do succeed—and ambition means so much to a man. You might have been pleased for your own sake; but would you have thought more of him as a man if he’d thrown it all up and lived on your pickles?” Honor brought her eyebrows together in a frown. “Now, Pixie O’Shaughnessy, don’t you go taking his part! I guess I’ve got about as much sense of justice as most, and in a few months’ time I’ll see the matter in its right light, but for the moment I’m injured, and I choose to feel injured; and I expect my friends to feel injured too. I’ve offered myself to an Englishman, and he’s refused to have me. There’s no getting; away from that fact, and it’s not a soothing experience for a free-born American. I’m through with Englishmen from this time forth!” “Except Stanor! Be kind to Stanor. He’s always liked you, Honor, and he knows no one in America. Promise me to be kind to Stanor, and see him as often as you can!” Honor’s brown eyes searched Pixie’s face with a curious glance. Then, rising from her chair, she crossed the room and kissed her warmly upon the cheek. “Yes, I’ll look after him. I’ll do anything you want, and nothing you don’t want. You can trust me, my dear. Remember that, won’t you? You’re a real sweet thing, Patricia!” Pixie laughed with characteristic complacence. “Yes; but why especially at this moment? I always am, aren’t I? And how superfluous, me dear, to talk of trust? What have I got to trust?” <hr /> A fortnight later Geoffrey and Joan Hilliard, Stephen Glynn, and Pixie journeyed to Liverpool to see the last of the travellers. The little party stood together on the deck of the great vessel, surrounded on every side by surge and bustle, but silent themselves with the silence which falls when the heart is full. Travelling down to Liverpool they had been quite a merry party, and there had been no effort in keeping the conversation afloat; but the last moments sealed their lips. Honor drew a few yards apart with the elderly, kindly-faced maid who was her faithful attendant; Stephen Glynn and the Hilliards strolled away in an opposite direction. Pixie and her lover stood alone. “Well, little girl... this is good-bye! Don’t forget me, darling...” Pixie gulped. “Take care of yourself, Stanor. Be happy! ... I want you to be happy.” “I shall be wretched!” said Stanor hotly. “I’m leaving you. Oh! Pixie—” He broke off suddenly as the last bell sounded its warning note, and bent to kiss her lips; “Good-bye, my little love!” The tears poured down Pixie’s face as she turned aside, and Geoffrey Hilliard led her tenderly down the gangway on to the landing-stage, where they stood together, tightly jammed in the crowd which watched the great steamer slowly move into the stream. Stanor and Honor were standing together leaning over the towering hull; their faces were pale, but they were smiling bravely, and Pixie wiped away her own tears and waved an answering hand. Esmeralda was holding her hand in a tender pressure; Geoffrey on one side, and Stephen Glynn on the other were regarding her with anxious solicitude. She smiled back with tremulous gratitude and gripped Esmeralda’s hand. Though Stanor was going, there was still much left, so many people to care and be kind. The great vessel quivered and moved slowly forward. Honor drew a little white handkerchief from her bag and waved it in the air; on all sides the action was repeated, accompanied by cries of farewell mingled with sounds of distress. Pixie caught the sound of a sob, and craned forward to look in the face of a girl about her own age who stood on the other side of Stephen Glynn. She wore a small, close-fitting cap, which left her face fully exposed as it strained towards that moving deck, and on the small white features was printed a very extremity of anguish. She was not crying; her glazed eyes showed no trace of tears, she seemed unconscious of the deep sobs which issued from her lips; every nerve, every power was concentrated in the one effort to behold to the last possible moment one beloved face. Instinctively Pixie’s eyes followed those of the girl’s, and beheld a man’s face gazing back, haggard, a-quiver, almost contorted with suffering. The story was plain to read. They also were lovers—this man and this girl. They also were facing years of separation, and the moment of parting held for them the bitterness of death. Pixie O’Shaughnessy glanced from one to the other, and then thoughtfully, deliberately along the deck to the spot where stood her own lover, handsome Stanor, bending his head to overhear a remark from Honor, stroking his blonde moustache. He looked dejected, depressed; but compared with the depth of emotion on the other man’s face, such meagre expressions faded into nothingness. The moment during which she gazed at his face held for Pixie the significance of years; then once more her eyes returned to the girl by her side... With every minute now the great vessel was slipping farther and farther from the stage; the faces of her passengers would soon cease to be distinguishable; in a few minutes they would be lost to sight, yet Pixie’s gaze remained riveted on the girl by her side, and on her own face was printed a mute dismay which one onlooker at least was quick to read. “She understands!” Stephen Glynn said to himself. “That girl’s face has been an object lesson stronger than any words. She understands the difference.” A moment later he met Pixie’s eyes, and realised afresh the truth of his diagnosis; but she drew herself up with a sort of defiance, and turned sharply aside. <hr /> In the train returning to town Pixie sat mute and pallid, and was waited upon assiduously by her sister and brother. To them it seemed natural enough that the poor child should collapse after the strain of parting. Only one person understood the deepest reason of her distress. He offered none of the conventional words of sympathy, and forebore to echo Esmeralda’s rosy pictures of the future. It brought another pang to Pixie’s sore heart to realise that he understood. “But I will be true,” she repeated to herself with insistent energy; “I will be true. I have given my word.” She felt very tired and spent as she lay back in the corner of her cushioned seat. On heart and brain was an unaccustomed weight; her very limbs felt heavy and inert, as if the motive power had failed. Virtue had gone out of her. At the sight of that anguished face, the years of Pixie’s untroubled girlhood had come to an end. Henceforth she was a woman, carrying her own burden. “But I will be true,” she repeated gallantly; “I will be true!” <hr /></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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