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Pixie O'Shaughnessy

<h3>Chapter Eight.</h3> <h4>Pixie in Trouble.</h4> It was already dark when the crocodile passed in at the gates of Holly House on its return from the expedition to town, and Miss Phipps gave instructions that the girls were to go straight to their rooms to dress for the evening. Full dress was the rule for the evenings of term-holiday, for even if nothing particular was going on, and no extra guests expected, it gave one a gala feeling to don a light frock, and gaze down upon one’s very best shoes and stockings. Before leaving for town in the morning, visits had been paid to the box-room to take the rarely-used splendours from their wrappings, and now they lay stretched out in all their glory on the narrow beds, white, blue, and pink, a very wealth of colour and luxury. Pixie O’Shaughnessy, having no adornment to do for herself, acted as lady’s-maid to her bedroom, with much satisfaction to her mistresses, and credit to herself. She brushed Kate’s hair until it was so smooth and flat as to be almost invisible from a front view; she tied Ethel’s sash, and the ribbon to match which confined the ends of her curls; and she fastened Flora’s dress, which was a matter of difficulty and time, for though it was let out regularly each holiday-time, it invariably grew too tight before it was needed again. “I can’t help it,” the poor thing protested miserably. “I don’t eat half as much as Ethel, and she’s as thin as a stick. It’s my fate! I was born fat, and I go on growing fatter and fatter all the time. I shall be a fat woman in a show, before I am done with it. It’s hard lines, for I should so love to be slim and willowy. That’s what the heroines are in books, and it makes me quite ill every time I read it. Nothing exciting ever happens to fat people! The thin ones get all the fun and excitement, and marry the nice man, while the poor fatty stays at home, and waits upon her hand and foot. Then she grows into an aunt, and takes charge of the nephews and nieces when they have fever or measles, or when the parents go abroad for a holiday. Everyone imposes upon her, just because she is fat!” “No, indeed, then, it is because she’s good-natured. Look at yourself now; you are always laughing!” declared Pixie soothingly. “Hold yer breath a single moment while I get the better of this hook. Ye’ll not need to curtsey too low, I’m thinking, or you’ll go off like a cracker! And the elegant dress that it is, too! I remember the night Bridgie went to her first ball, the Hunt Ball it was, over at Roskillie. It was me mother’s wedding-dress that she wore, and she looked like a picture in it, the darlin’! Me mother was for having it altered to be in the fashion, but me father says, ‘Leave it alone; you’ll spoil it if ye alter a stitch! It’s better than fashionable,’ he says, ‘it’s artistic, and fits the child like her own skin.’ So away it was put in Bridgie’s cupboard, and Esmeralda comes peeping at it, and, thinks she, ‘What yellow lace! It would be a disgrace to us all to have the girl dancing about with that dirty stuff round her neck,’ so not a word did she speak, but off with the lace and washed it herself, with a good hard rub, and plenty of blue bag. Then she ironed it, with a morsel of starch to make it stand out and show itself off, and stitched it on again as proud as could be. It was to be a surprise for Bridgie, and, me dears, it was a surprise! Mother and Bridgie screeching at the top of their voices, and looking as if the plague was upon us. Would ye believe it, it was just what they liked, to have the lace that colour, and it was the bad turn Esmeralda had done them, starching it up like new! Off it all came, and mother found an old lace scarf, yellower than the first, and pinned it round Bridgie’s shoulders, and she had pearls round her neck, and a star in her hair, and Lord Atrim danced the first dance with her, and told me mother she was the prettiest thing he had seen for a twelvemonth. But Esmeralda sulked all the evening, and it was very lively for me alone at home with her tantrums!” Flora chuckled softly, and Ethel give a shrill “He! he!” from her cubicle at the other end of the room. “I do think you must be the funniest family! You seem always to be doing the most extraordinary things. We never have such experiences at home. We used to go along quietly and steadily, and there is never any hubbub nor excitement. You seem to have a constant succession of alarms and adventures.” “We do so!” said Pixie with relish. “Scarcely the day that we’re not all rushing about in distraction about something. Either it’s the boys tumbling out of the barn and cutting themselves open, or father bringing home accidents from the meet, or the ferret getting loose in the drawing-room when there’s visitors present, or not a pound of fresh meat in the house, and the Bishop taking it into his head to drive over ten miles to lunch! And Bridgie was for going out and killing a chicken, and engaging him in conversation while it was cooked, but mother says, ‘No, the man’s hungry! Bring lunch in the same as if we were alone, and leave the rest to me.’ And when he had asked the blessing she says, smiling, ‘It’s nothing but ham and eggs I’ve got to offer ye, Bishop, but there’s enough welcome for ten courses,’ and the smile of him would have done you good to behold. Three eggs he ate, and half a pig besides, and ‘It’s the best lunch I’ve had since I said good-bye to short jackets,’ he said when he was finished.” “Now, now, Pixie, not so much talking! Get on with your own dressing, you little chatterbox!” cried Kate, putting her head round the corner of the curtain and giving a tug to the end of the short black skirt. “Flora can manage now, and you have not too much time, if you are to catch Lottie before she goes out. Hurry up! Hurry up!” Pixie retired obediently, for Kate was head girl of the dormitory, and must needs be obeyed; so one black frock came off and another went on, the stout boots were exchanged for slippers, and then—the others having already departed—she turned down the gas, and skipped along to the room where Lottie stood waiting for her, a vision of spotless white. “That’s right! I was just wondering what had become of you. Sit down here, and I’ll put on the collar, and just call out if I stick a pin in you by mistake. I’m going to fasten it with this little brooch. There! Isn’t it sweet? I think I will give it to you to keep. I never wear it, and you might just as well have it. Yes, I will! You shall have it for a term-holiday present, because you were a kind little girl and didn’t join the other girls when they were nasty to me last week. Are you pleased with it now?” “Oh–h, Lottie! You darlin’! Is it really me very own?” Pixie was fairly breathless with pleasure and excitement, and could only exclaim rapturously and gaze at the reflection of the new treasure, while Lottie smiled, well pleased to have given so much pleasure. Yes! she told herself she was really devoted to Pixie O’Shaughnessy! There was something so sweet and taking about the child that it made one feel nice to give her pleasure, and she pinned, and arranged, and tied ribbons with as much zest as if she were arranging her own toilette. “There! Now you are done. I think you look very nice. The collar goes so well with that black dress.” “My worrd! Aren’t I stylish! I just look beautiful!” cried Pixie, poking her ugly little face close to the glass, and twisting round and round to examine herself in all aspects. She kissed Lottie effusively, expressed a hundred thanks, and danced downstairs into the schoolroom, where the girls were standing about in twos and threes, looking so grand that it was quite difficult to recognise them. They all stared at her as the latest arrival, and Pixie, being conscious of their scrutiny, held out her arms stiffly on either side, and revolved slowly round and round on one heel. The girls laughed uproariously at first, then suddenly the laughs subsided into titters, and Pixie, stopping to see what was wrong, espied Miss Phipps and the three governesses standing just inside the doorway, watching with the rest and applauding with their hands. It was an embarrassing moment, and the performer made a quick dash behind a sofa to screen herself from publicity, but she had not been there five minutes before she was called upon to answer a question. “Pixie, Kate tells me you were in Lottie’s room before you came down. Was she nearly ready?” “She was, Miss Phipps, quite ready! Only waiting for me. She’s on a white dress, and—” “Never mind that. I want you to run upstairs, please, and tell her that the cab is here. She must put on her wraps and come down at once.” “I will, Miss Phipps.” There was a whisk of short black skirts and off she went, running lightly upstairs, and raising her voice in rich, musical cry, “Lottie! Lottie!” “The real Irish voice! She ought to be able to sing charmingly when she is older,” said Miss Phipps to Mademoiselle, and Mademoiselle nodded her head in assent. “I ’ope so! It is a great charm for a young girl to sing well, and she is not pretty. La pauvre petite!” “No; yet the father is fine-looking, and my friends tell me that the two sisters are quite beauties, and all the family wonderfully handsome with this one exception. But Pixie is better than pretty, she is charming. Would you be kind enough to go to the dining-room to see if everything is ready, Mademoiselle? It is time we began tea.” Mademoiselle departed, and came back to give the required signal, when the girls filed slowly across the hall, casting curious glances at Lottie as she came downstairs. She was wrapped up in a long white cloak, and had a fleecy shawl thrown over her head, almost covering her face from view. She looked very dainty, and when the door opened and they beheld her step into the cab, they felt a rising of envy which could not be entirely removed, even by the sight of the luxurious tea spread out on the dining-room table. “Lottie is a lucky creature!” sighed Clara discontentedly. “She is always going out. I wish my people lived near, instead of at the other end of England. I am glad I am North Country, though; I don’t like Southerners! I agree with Tennyson— <blockquote> “‘True, and firm, and tender is the North; False, and fair, and smiling is the South.’” </blockquote> “It isn’t false; it’s sweet!” “It is false, I tell you! False, and fair, and—” “Sweet, and fair, and—” “Ask Miss Phipps, then, if you won’t believe me. Oh, I say, look at the icing on the cake! We didn’t have icing last time. Doesn’t the table look nice? I do think it is sweet of Miss Phipps to take so much trouble. Sit by me, and we will get hold of Pixie, and make her tell us stories. It makes me laugh just to hear that child talk. Her brogue doesn’t get a bit better.” “I hope it never may. Pixie, here! Sit by us. We’ve kept a place!” But Pixie shook her head, for she had been engaged to Flora ever since breakfast, and was already seating herself at the other end of the table. She did not speak much, however, during the meal, for experience had taught what it had been difficult to express in words—that it was not respectful to her teachers to chatter in their presence, as she would do with her companions. She applied herself instead to the good things that had been provided, and ate away steadily until she had sampled the contents of every plate upon the table, and could superintend the choice of her companions with the wisdom of experience. Miss Phipps had drawn out a programme of games for the evening’s amusement, and later on the older pupils took it in turns to play waltzes and polkas, while the others danced. The teachers joined in with the rest, and it was a proud girl who had Miss Phipps for a partner, while Mademoiselle was so light and agile that it was like dancing with a feather, and Fraulein felt like a heavy log lying against one’s arm. Then everyone sat down and puffed and panted, while Jeanie, the Scotch girl, danced a Highland Fling, and when Pixie called out an appropriate “Hoch! Hoch!” the teachers laughed as heartily as the girls; for be it well understood there are things which are allowed on term-holiday which the rashest spirit dare not attempt on working days! Then two pretty sisters went through the stately figures of a minuet, and Margaret sang a song in her sweet voice, pronouncing the words so distinctly that you really knew what she was singing about, which nowadays is a very rare and wonderful accomplishment. Altogether it was a most festive evening, and Flora was in the act of remarking complacently, “We really are a most accomplished school!” when suddenly the scene changed, and an expression of horrified anxiety appeared on every face, for Mademoiselle came rushing into the room, which she had left but a few minutes before, and the tears stood in her eyes, and her face was scarlet with mingled grief and anger. She held in one hand the gold stopper of her precious scent-bottle, and in the other a number of pieces of broken glass, at sight of which a groan of dismay sounded on every hand. “Voilà! Regardez See what I ’ave found! I go to my room, and the air is full of scent, and I turn up the gas, and there it is—on the dressing-table before my eyes—in pieces! My bottle—that I have kept all these years—that was given to me by my friend—my dear, good friend!” Her voice broke off in a sob, and Miss Phipps came forward to examine the pieces with an expression of real distress. “But, Mademoiselle, how has it happened? You found it on the table, you say,—not on the floor. If it had been on the floor, you might perhaps have swept it off in leaving the room, and not heard the sound against the mat. But on the table! How could it be broken on the table?” “Someone has been touching it and let it drop.” “I be so careless as to break my bottle? It is impossible to think of! I never come away without a look to see that it is safe. I dust my dressing-table myself every morning, so that no one shall interfere with my things. The servants know that it is so. When I came downstairs this evening it was all right. I have not been upstairs since.” “I think very few of us have. We have been too busy. Ellen would go in, of course, to prepare the bed. Did she—” “Yes! It was Ellen who told me. I was in the hall, and she came out of the kitchen and said, ‘Oh, Mademoiselle, do you know? Your beautiful bottle is broken!’” Mademoiselle’s voice broke; she held out the pieces and exclaimed in broken tones, “And I ran—and I saw—this!” “I am sorry! I am grieved! But we must get to the bottom of this mystery. Things do not fall over and break by themselves. Girls, do any of you know anything about this? If so, please speak out at once, and don’t be afraid to tell the truth. If by any chance one of you has unintentionally broken Mademoiselle’s bottle, I know you will be as deeply grieved as she can be herself; but the only thing you can do now is to explain, and beg her forgiveness. Carelessness it must have been, and you cannot hope to escape altogether without punishment, but remember deception is fifty times worse. I have no mercy on a girl who knows she is guilty, and lets her companions rest under the shadow of suspicion. Now, I ask you again, do you know anything at all of the cause of this accident?” There was a unanimous burst of denial from all parts of the room; but different girls took the question in different ways, as was natural to the different characters. Some looked grieved, some indignant, a few showed suspicions of tears, and Pixie looked so thoroughly scared and miserable that more than one eye rested curiously upon her. Miss Phipps glanced around with her keen, scrutinising glance, then pressed her lips together, and said sharply— “This becomes serious! You all deny it? Very well, I must find out the truth for myself. Call Ellen, please, Mademoiselle. I am sorry to have such a painful ending to our happy holiday, but we cannot go to bed with this cloud hanging over us. Ellen, Mademoiselle tells me that you found the scent-bottle broken when you went into her room just now to turn down the bed!” Ellen straightened herself and fumbled miserably with the corner of her apron. She loved all the girls, and had known many of them for years; for though other maids might come and go, Ellen, like the brook, went on for ever. She had been a servant in the Phipps family, and had accompanied “her young lady” when Holly House was bought and the school first founded. Matron, nurse, general factotum, and refuge in time of trouble, it would have been as easy to suspect her of duplicity as Miss Phipps herself. She was wretched now because she feared that her “children” might be in trouble, and her “children” knew it, and loved her for her fear. “I did, Miss Emily. It was lying just where it usually stands, with the glass piled up in a little heap.” “It looked, then, as if someone had arranged it so? Not as if it had been, say, blown over by any chance?” “It couldn’t have blown over, Miss Emily! It was too heavy. And it wasn’t near the window, either.” “And the pieces, you say, were gathered together, as if someone had placed them so? Very well, I understand! Now, Ellen, have any of the other maids been upstairs to your knowledge since Mademoiselle left her room at seven o’clock?” “They say they have not, miss, for I asked them, and I’ve been in the kitchen all the time. We were busy clearing away after tea, and getting the refreshments ready for supper, and then we came and watched the young ladies dance.” “You would have noticed if anyone had gone upstairs?” “I think I should, being together all the time. They have no work upstairs at this hour—” “I know that, but I must speak to them myself later on. There is one thing more, Ellen. Your work upstairs takes you a good time. In passing to and fro, you didn’t happen to see anyone in or near Mademoiselle’s room, I suppose? Speak up, please! Remember I rely upon you to do all in your power to help me to get to the bottom of this mystery!” The last words were added in a warning voice, for Ellen’s start of dismay and drawn, miserable brows too plainly betrayed the truth of her mistress’s surmise. “I saw—when I went up first in the middle of the dancing, I was at the end of the passage, and I saw little Miss O’Shaughnessy coming out of a room. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was Mademoiselle’s!” She had said it, and in an instant every eye in the room was riveted upon Pixie, and every heart sank woefully at the sight of her crimson, agitated face. It said much for the hold which she had gained on her companions’ affections that at this moment the feeling in every girl’s breast was that she would prefer to find the culprit in almost any other girl in the school than in dear, loving, kind-hearted Irish Pixie. Perhaps Miss Phipps felt the same, but it did not become her to show favouritism, and her voice was very stern and cold. “Come here, Pixie, please! Stand before me! You have heard what Ellen says! Was it Mademoiselle’s room out of which you were coming?” “It—was, Miss Phipps!” said Pixie, with a gulp; and a groan of dismay sounded through the room, at which Miss Phipps’s eyes sent out a flashing glance. “Silence, please! Leave this to me! Was it you who let the bottle fall and broke it, then, though you would not acknowledge it when I asked just now?” Pixie’s lips moved, but she seemed so paralysed with fear that she had to repeat her words twice over before they could be heard. “No, I—I didn’t break it, Miss Phipps! I didn’t break it!” “Do you mean to say you know nothing about it? Did you not notice it when you were in the room? May I ask what you were doing in that room at all? You had no business in there.” “I—I—please, Miss Phipps, the gas was down; I didn’t see anything!” “I asked you, Pixie, what you were doing in that room?” To the dismay of her companions, Pixie hung her head and refused to answer, and, when the question was repeated, had no reason to offer but a stammering, “It was nothing! I was doing nothing!” “That is nonsense, Pixie; you would not go upstairs and into a strange room, to-night of all nights, without a very definite reason. I insist upon your telling me what you were doing. If it is nothing of which you are ashamed, you need surely not hesitate to speak.” “I wasn’t doing anything! I never touched it!” said Pixie once more, and an expression came over her face which was well known to the inhabitants of Bally William, though so far it was unfamiliar to her companions—a dumb, obstinate look which promised little satisfaction to the questioner. “If you refuse to answer me, Pixie, it is your own fault if I suspect you. You have been with us only a short time, but I have always believed you to be truthful and straightforward. I should be sorry to change my opinion, but you will have yourself to blame!” She paused and looked down at the little black figure, and her face softened regretfully. “You need not look so terrified, child. Mademoiselle is naturally very grieved and distressed, but you know her well enough to be sure that she would forgive you if you have unintentionally broken her pretty bottle. She would be sorry to drive you into telling a falsehood—wouldn’t you, Mademoiselle?” “I shall say nothing to her. My bottle is gone, and it can do no good now. But she had no right to touch my things. My room is my own, and she had no business there at all. I thought you were a good girl, Pixie, and remembered what I had said to you. I did not think you would grieve me like this. I have not so many treasures!” Mademoiselle’s tears trickled down afresh, and the girls began to look askance at Pixie, and to feel the first incredulity give place to a horrible doubt. Why wouldn’t she speak? Why did she look so guilty? Why need she have been so alarmed at the first mention of the accident if she had no part in bringing it about? Margaret held out her hand with an involuntary gesture of appeal, and Pixie, seeing it, shut her lips more tightly than ever. “You may go to your room, Pixie,” said Miss Phipps coldly. “I am very much disappointed in you!” <hr> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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