More about Pixie.
by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey.
CHAPTER ONE.
A NEW NEIGHBOUR.
The night nurse was dusting the room preparatory to going off duty for the day, and Sylvia was lying on her water-bed watching her movements with gloomy, disapproving eyes. For four long weeks--ever since the crisis had pa.s.sed and she had come back to consciousness of her surroundings--she had watched the same proceeding morning after morning, until its details had become almost unbearably wearisome to her weak nerves.
First of all came Mary to sweep the floor--she went down on her knees, and swept up the dust with a small hand-brush, and however carefully she might begin, it was quite, quite certain that she would end by knocking up against the legs of the bed, and giving a jar and shock to the quivering inmate. Then she would depart, and nurse would take the ornaments off the mantelpiece, flick the duster over them, and put them back in the wrong places.
It did not seem of the least importance to her whether the blue vase stood in the centre or at the side, but Sylvia had a dozen reasons for wishing to have it in exactly one position and no other. She liked to see its graceful shape and rich colouring reflected in the mirror which hung immediately beneath the gas-bracket; if it were moved to the left it spoiled her view of a tiny water-colour painting which was one of her greatest treasures, while if it stood on the right it ousted the greatest treasure of all--the silver-framed portrait of the dear, darling, most beloved of fathers, who was afar off at the other side of the world, tea-planting in Ceylon.
Sylvia was too weak to protest, but she burrowed down among the clothes, and moped to herself in good old typhoid fashion. "Wish she would leave it alone! Wish people wouldn"t bother about the room. Don"t care if it is dusty! Wish I could be left in peace. Don"t believe I shall ever be better. Don"t believe my temperature ever _will_ go down. Don"t care if it doesn"t! Wish father were home to come and talk, and cheer me up.
Boo-hoo-hoo!"
The tears trickled down and splashed saltly against her lips, but she kept her sobs under control, for crying was a luxury which was forbidden by the authorities, and could only be indulged in by stealth.
The night nurse thought that the patient had fallen asleep, but when she went off duty, and her successor arrived, she cast a suspicious glance at the humped-up bedclothes, and turned them down with a gentle but determined hand.
"Crying again?" she cried. "Oh, come now, I can"t allow that! What are you crying about on such a lovely, bright morning, when you have had such a good night"s rest?"
"I had a horrid night. I couldn"t sleep a bit. I feel so mum-mum- miserable!" wailed the patient dolefully. "I"m so tired of being in bed."
"You won"t have very much longer of it now. Your temperature is lower than it has ever been this morning. You ought to be in good spirits instead of crying in this silly way. Come now, cheer up! I am not going to allow such a doleful face."
"I"m very cheerful when I"m well. Ask Aunt Margaret if I"m not. I"ve a most lively disposition. Everyone says so," whined Sylvia dismally.
"I"m tired of everything and everybody. So would you be if you"d been in bed for two months."
"Tired of me as well as the rest?"
"Yes, I am. You are a nasty, horrid, strict, cross thing." But a smile struggled through the tears, and a thin hand stole out from beneath the clothes and pressed the white-sleeved arms in eloquent contradiction.
Whatever Sylvia was tired of, it was certainly not this gentle, sweet- faced little woman who--humanly speaking--had brought her back from the verge of the grave. She snoodled her head along the pillow so as to lean it against the nurse"s shoulder, and said in weak, disconnected s.n.a.t.c.hes, "I"m sorry--I"m so horrid. I feel so cross and low-spirited.
I want--a change. Can"t you think--of something nice?"
"You are going to have some beautiful chicken-soup for your lunch. It is in a perfect jelly."
"Hate chicken-soup! Hate the sight of soup! Want to have salmon and cuc.u.mber, and ice creams, and nice rich puddings."
Nurse laughed complacently.
"So you shall--some day! Glad you feel well enough to want them now.
Would you like to be carried to the sofa by the window for an hour this afternoon, while your bed is being aired and made comfortable? I think it would do you good to lie in the sunshine, and the doctor could help me to carry you. It would be quite exciting to see a glimpse of the outer world, wouldn"t it?"
"Rather! I can"t believe that everything is going on just the same.
Are all the neighbours alive still? Is the old man at the corner alive?
Has the little girl at Number Five grown-up and put on long frocks? I feel as if I had been lying here for years and years. I believe I have grown grey myself. Give me a hand-gla.s.s, Whitey, and let me see how I look."
Whitey walked obediently across the room, and brought back the silver- backed gla.s.s from the dressing-table. She was accustomed to her nickname by this time, and was indeed rather proud of it than otherwise.
She had been known successively as "Spirit of the Day," and "The White Nurse," during the hours of delirium, and the abbreviation had a natural girlish ring about it, which was a herald of returning health.
"There, look at yourself, Miss Conceit!" she cried laughingly, and Sylvia held the gla.s.s erect in both hands and stared curiously at her own reflection. She saw a thin, clear-cut little face, with arched eyebrows, large brown eyes, an aquiline nose, and full, pouting lips.
The cheeks showed delicate hollows beneath the cheek bones, and the eyes looked tired and heavy, otherwise there was no startling change to record.
"I don"t look as much older as I expected, but I"ve got a different expression, Whitey--a sort of starved-wolf, haggard, tired-out look, just exactly like I feel. Aren"t I beautifully thin? It"s always been my ambition to be slim and willowy, like the people in fashion plates.
I shall be quite a vision of elegance, shan"t I, Whitey?"
"Um! Well," said Whitey vaguely, "you must expect to look very slight after lying in bed for so long, but it doesn"t matter about that. You won"t trouble about appearances, so long as you feel well and strong again."
"Yes, I shall!" said the invalid stubbornly. She turned her head on one side and stared intently at the long plaits of hair which trailed over the pillow--her "Kenwigs" as she had dubbed them, after Charles d.i.c.kens"s immortal "Miss Kenwigses," who are pictorially represented in short frocks, pantaloons, and tight plaits of hair, secured at the ends by bows of ribbon.
"My Kenwigs look very thin," she said anxiously. "I used to have three thick coils. People"s hair doesn"t come out after typhoid fever, does it, Whitey? I shall be furious if mine does."
"Oh, hair generally comes out a little in autumn," replied Whitey easily. "Now you have looked at yourself quite long enough. I will put back the gla.s.s and prepare some food while your aunt comes to see you, but I shall tell her not to talk too much, for the doctor won"t let you be moved if you are looking tired and exhausted."
Sylvia sighed to herself, for interviews with Aunt Margaret were a decided trial in these days of convalescence, when every nerve seemed on edge and ready to be jarred. She was nearly twenty-two, and for the first year after leaving school the dear old dad had been in England, and she had had the most delightful time travelling about with him. He always declared that he was a poor man, that tea was doing so disgracefully badly, that he expected to retire into the workhouse in the course of the next year, but, all the same, he never appeared to be short of money, and the travelling was done in the most comfortable and luxurious of fashions. Sylvia was his only child, and in his eyes was the most beautiful and accomplished creature in the world, so that it was a trying experience to be domiciled with an elderly maiden aunt, whose ideas were as early Victorian as her furniture, who had forgotten what it felt like to be young, and was continually aggrieved because her niece had not learned to be old.
During the long year of idleness Sylvia had cherished the idea that her father would take her back to Ceylon, when she would reign as Queen of the Bungalow, charm the hearts of the coolies by her beauty and dignity, pay frequent visits to Kandy, and become one of the favourites of society; but when it came to the point it appeared that he had no intention of the sort. In two or three years he hoped to be able to settle in England, and meantime his ambition for his daughter demanded that she should remain at home and devote her time to music, for which she showed an unusual talent. If he had other reasons he kept them to himself, but as a matter of fact he dreaded a possible marriage abroad, which would condemn the girl to a life of separation from so much that is good and pleasant, and if any qualms arose as to the cheerfulness of the home in which he was leaving her, he consoled himself by the reflection that he would be able to make up for temporary deprivations in the years to come.
Mr Trevor sailed off to the East, and Sylvia took up her abode at Number 6 Rutland Road, in an unfashionable suburb in the north of London, and settled down to being a "good industrious girl" with what grace she might. She did not understand Aunt Margaret, and Aunt Margaret felt it a decided trial to have her sleepy home invaded by a restless young creature, who was never so happy as when she was singing at the pitch of her voice, rushing up and down stairs, and playing silly schoolboy tricks; but fate had ordained that they were to live together, and they had jogged along more or less peacefully until that unlucky day when the girl had sickened for her dangerous illness. Then, indeed, Aunt Margaret realised that she had grown to love her wayward charge, and all the manifold demands and inconveniences of illness were swallowed up in anxiety during the first anxious weeks. She allowed not only one, but two of "those dreadful nurses" to take possession of her spare rooms, submitted meekly to their orders, and saw her domestic rules and regulations put aside without a murmur of protest; but when the crisis was safely pa.s.sed, and recovery became only a matter of time, the old fussy nature rea.s.serted itself, and her eyes were open to behold the dire results of a long illness.
This bright October morning she came stooping into Sylvia"s bedroom, a slight woman with a narrow bent back, brown hair smoothed neatly down on each side of a withered, dried-up face, with a patch of red on the cheek bones, and sunken brown eyes roving restlessly to right and left. She wore a black stuff dress, a satin ap.r.o.n with pockets and an edging of jet, and knitted mittens over her wrists--a typical old lady of the ancient type. Yet as she stood beside the bed there was a curious likeness to be observed between her face and the one on the pillow; and Sylvia recognised as much, and felt a thrill of dismay at the thought that some day she, too, would be frail and bent, and wear a cap and mittens, and have rheumatic joints, and attacks of bronchitis if by chance she was so imprudent as to go out without putting on goloshes, a woollen "crossover," and a big silk m.u.f.fler beneath her mantle. To one- and-twenty it seemed an appalling prospect, and one to be shunted into the background with all possible speed.
"Well, my love, and how are you this morning? Much better, I hear. A good drop in temperature," said Aunt Margaret, pecking her niece"s cheek with her lips, and answering her own question without waiting for a reply, as her custom was. "Nurse tells me that you will soon be up again, and I"m sure it is time. This room needs a regular spring cleaning, and as for the new drugget on the landing--three new spots of milk this morning, to say nothing of what has gone before! If I had known you were going to be ill I would have made the old one last another year, for it is sheer waste of money buying new things to have them ruined in six months. The last one was down thirteen years, and looked very little worse than this does now!"
"Father will buy you another. You must put it down as one of the expenses. He won"t mind so long as I get better," said the invalid wearily; whereupon Aunt Margaret drew herself up with an air of wounded pride.
"Indeed, my dear, your poor father will have enough to do to pay all the doctors and nurses without being called upon for extras. I am willing to bear my own share, though I will say my stair-carpets have had as much wear and tear in the last two months as in half a dozen years before, and that Nurse Ellen is a most careless creature, she leaves everything in a muddle! If you get up, my dear, you must wear my wadded jacket. I had a young friend--she was the cousin of Sarah Wedderburn, who lived in Stanhope Terrace, and married young Johnson of Sunderland.--You have heard me speak of the Johnsons, who were at school with your Aunt Emma?"
Sylvia blinked her eyelids in a non-committal manner which might be taken either for a.s.sent or denial. She was afraid to confess ignorance of the Johnson family, lest Aunt Margaret"s love of biography should take a further flight in order to recall Sarah Wedderburn"s cousin to her remembrance.
"And what did she do?" she queried weakly. "Don"t tell me anything gruesome, please, aunt, because I feel so low-spirited this morning that I can"t bear anything depressing!"
"I should be very sorry to depress you, my dear. Nothing is farther from my wishes, and if she had been careful nothing need have happened.
Her sister told me it was all her own fault for not being sufficiently wrapped up. I"ll tell you the whole story another day when there is more time, for now I must go out to do my housekeeping. These meals will be the death of me! The cloth is never off the table. I quite expect Mary will give notice at the end of the month, and goodness knows what we shall do then, for it seems impossible to get hold of respectable girls. The milk-bill has just come in for the month.
Ruinous! Ruinous! Now, my love, you must really cheer up and try to look more like yourself. Perhaps I shall find you on the sofa when I come back. Tell nurse not to use my best cushions; your own pillows will do perfectly well."
She bustled out of the room, and Sylvia stared into s.p.a.ce with a doleful face.
"It"s all very well to ask me to be cheerful, when she tells me in the same breath that I am ruining her, and her beloved furniture. I"m sure I didn"t want to be ill! If dad were at home he would never reproach me." The tears were very near falling once more, but just at that moment there came the sound of a manly footstep, and in walked the doctor, large, stout, beaming, a very incarnation of health and good spirits.
"Well, and so nurse tells me you think of going to the seaside to-day!
You are getting tired of yourself, and want a change--eh? I don"t wonder at that. You think you would enjoy having a little peep at the world again? Let me feel your pulse and see if I can allow it."
The pulse was quite satisfactory, so nurse and doctor promptly set to work to spread blankets on the couch, draw forward screens to prevent possibility of draught, and bank up pillows to allow a glimpse of the road beneath. Then Sylvia clasped her arms tightly round the nurse"s neck, the doctor raised her feet, there was a moment"s dizzy confusion, while her eyes swam and her ears hummed, and there she lay on the sofa, as at the end of a long and arduous journey, while her attendants wrapped her up in blankets and eiderdowns, and looked anxiously to see how she had borne the exertion. The little face was very white, but bright with pleasure and excitement, and the offer of smelling salts and cordials was laughed aside with good-natured contempt.
"No, no--I"m all right--just a little breathless after that whirl through s.p.a.ce. How funny the room looks! I"ve looked at it broadways so long that I can"t recognise it from this point of view. Is that the water-bed? What a strange-looking thing! just like a lot of hot bottles joined together. It _is_ comfortable over here! I"d like to stay all day. Oh, oh, oh! here"s the butcher"s cart! How lovely it is to see the world again!"