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<h3>Chapter Five.</h3> <h4>An Invitation.</h4> The operation was successful and unsuccessful—that is to say, the fear of amputation was removed; but it became abundantly evident that it would be a very long time before Sylvia recovered the power of walking about with ease. A few weeks earlier she would have been heartbroken at the prospect of a spell of crippledom, but the greater troubles eclipse the less, and compared with that other paralysing dread, it was a passing inconvenience at which she could afford to smile. Poor child! her first impulse on recovering from the chloroform had been to dive to the bottom of the bed to feel if the foot were still there, and her elastic spirits went up with a bound as she listened to the surgeon’s reassuring report. She was perfectly willing to lie on the sofa and give up all idea of Christmas festivities, willing, in fact, in the relief and joy of the moment, to promise anything and everything if only she might look forward to unimpaired strength in the future. As for Miss Munns, she rejoiced with grumbling, as her custom was, mingling thankful speeches with plaints for her own deprivations, to the mingled distress and amusement of her hearers. Christmas was drawing near, and there had been no time to prepare for the proper keeping of the festival, for cook had been too much occupied with jellies and beef-teas to have any time to spare. There were no mince-pies in the larder, no plum-puddings in their fat cloth wrappings, no jars of lemon cheese, no cakes, no shortbread, not so much as a common bun-loaf, and Aunt Margaret hung her head, and felt that a blot had fallen upon her escutcheon. “I can’t fancy Christmas with bought mince-pies!” she said sadly. “I’ve kept house for forty years and never failed to make four plum-puddings—one for Christmas Day, one for New Year, one for company, and one for Easter. Some people make them without eggs nowadays, but I keep to the old recipe. My mother’s plum-puddings were quite famous among her friends. Of course, my dear, we have great cause for thankfulness, and I should have had no appetite if you had lost your foot; but it really upsets me to look at that larder! How many pounds of mincemeat have you made, Miss O’Shaughnessy, may I ask?” Sylvia was lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, to which she had been carried in time for tea, and Bridgie was sitting beside her, looking with wondering eyes at the muffled splendours which she now beheld for the first time. She blushed as she heard the question, and adroitly evaded an answer, for, to tell the truth, she bought her pies from the pastry-cook, and congratulated herself on the saving of trouble. “Oh, indeed, we get through a great deal, for the boys think nothing of three pies at a sitting. I’d be obliged to you, Miss Munns, if you would lend me your recipe for the pudding, for my cook is not the cleverest in the world, and, as Jack says, there is no monotony about her results. If she does a thing well three times, there’s all the more chance that it will be wrong the fourth, when you are encouraged to ask a friend to dinner.” Aunt Margaret sawed the air with her mittened hands, and shook her cap in solemn denunciation. “Method, my dear—method! They won’t take the trouble to measure the ingredients, but just trust to chance, so what can you expect? You shall have the recipe with pleasure, but if you take my advice you will look after the weighing yourself. Are you expecting any friends for the day, or perhaps one of your sisters?” “No—we shall be quite alone. My married sister wanted us all to go to Ireland, but the boys cannot spare the time, and I will not leave them.” Bridgie sighed, and a shadow passed over her face. “It won’t seem like Christmas to have no coming nor going, and Esmeralda and Pixie so far-away. I have been trying to think of a diversion for the boys, but I might spare myself the trouble, for I’ve no money to pay for it if I had the idea.” “Straitness of means is a great curtailer of pleasure,” said Miss Munns, gazing solemnly into space over the edge of her spectacles. “In my own family we have had sad experiences of the kind. My great-uncle was in most comfortable circumstances, and kept his own brougham and peach-houses before the failure of the Glasgow Bank. They removed to Syringa Villas after that, and did the washing at home. I shall never forget calling upon Emma the first Tuesday that the clothes were hanging out to dry in the back garden, and finding her in tears, with the blinds drawn down. She had a great deal of family pride, had poor Emma, for her mother belonged to the leading circles in Wolverhampton, and the steam of clothes in the boiler is most depressing unless you have been brought up to it from a child. George died soon after. He never held up his head again, and Emmeline, the daughter, had a very good offer from a corn-broker. She was a fine-looking girl, with black eyes and her poor father’s nose. She looked very well in the evening, when she was dressed, and had a colour.” “And did she marry the corn-broker?” queried Bridgie eagerly. Sylvia was flushed and frowning, more than half ashamed of the old lady’s disclosures, fearful lest they might affect her own importance in the estimation of a friend who had lived in a Castle, and owned a sister who went to Court, and profoundly uninterested in Emmeline and her destiny; but Bridgie was all animation and curiosity, her grey eyes wide with anxiety as to the success of the corn-broker and his suit. Here, indeed, was a listener worth having, and Miss Munns warmed to her task with even more than the usual enjoyment. “My dear, you would hardly believe the time poor Emma had with that girl! She took a fancy to a bank clerk on two hundred a year, and nothing would suit but she must be engaged to him. He gave her a turquoise ring, I remember—a shabby thing that could not have cost more than a sovereign, and Emma was quite mortified when people asked to see it. They were engaged for five years, and she lost all her looks, and he had a bicycling accident, and hurt his right arm so badly that he could not write. “Emma insisted that the engagement should be broken off, but the stupid girl would not listen to reason. She had a little legacy from her godmother about that time, and his father allowed him something, so they were married, and went abroad to try a cure for his arm. He is back at work again, and they seem happy enough; but it was a poor match for her, and they can only afford one servant. The corn-broker said he could never look at a girl again, but he married one of the Miss Twemlows within the year. Perhaps you know the Twemlows? They are a very well-known family in their suburb.” No, Bridgie did not know them, but her expression seemed to denote that she was quite ready to listen to their family history, in addition to those which she had already heard. But this was more than Sylvia could bear, and she hastened to interrupt the flow of her aunt’s reminiscences. “You have not heard from Aunt Emma lately—at least, you have not told me of her letters. I suppose you have not seen her while I have been ill?” Miss Munns pursed up her lips in a manner which seemed to imply that she was in possession of some weighty secret, but from motives of prudence was resolved to conceal it from the world. “I have heard from her, my dear. I have not seen her. As I said in my reply, everything must give way to illness, though I am very sorry indeed to think of her alone in the house. Emmeline can’t leave the baby, so it is only natural that her mother should want some companionship over Christmas. I would have had her here instead, but the house is so upset that I am not prepared for visitors. It is very pleasant meeting from time to time, being contemporaries as we are, and having gone through so many troubles together. There is nothing I enjoy more than talking them over with your Aunt Emma, and I am grieved to disappoint her. Of course I made up my mind from the first to say nothing about it to you.” Now it was Bridgie’s turn to look blank, and Sylvia’s to question anxiously. “Do you mean that she invited you for Christmas, and that you refused because of me? Oh, Aunt Margaret, you must not do that! You need a change, and it would be a relief to have all arrangements taken off your hands. Whitey and I could manage quite well by ourselves. Do please change your mind and write to say that you will go!” “My love, I assure you that I considered the matter very carefully before I decided, and it is impossible for me to leave home. I have promised nurse that she shall spend two days with her sister, coming round each morning to attend to your foot, and I should not like to disappoint her. It is only natural that she should wish to be with her own friends. I sympathise with her, but I don’t complain. It is not your fault that your illness has upset my plans, and it is my duty to be resigned and cheerful.” Aunt Margaret testified to her sense of duty by heaving a sigh of funereal proportions, the while Sylvia’s brow became fretted with lines, and she turned a glance of despair upon her friend. To be condemned to spend Christmas alone with Aunt Margaret in this mood of melancholy resignation; to realise that she had deprived her of the happiness of talking over past troubles with poor dear Emma; to listen from morning to night to her transparently-veiled repinings—this was indeed a cheerful prospect for an invalid, who might naturally have expected to receive the sympathy herself. “Aren’t you sorry for me?” the brown eyes asked Bridgie mutely. But, lo! Bridgie was radiant, her face one sparkle of animation, her hands uplifted to hail the advent of a happy thought. “The Diversion,” she cried rapturously—“the Diversion! I see it all, and it is perfectly charming! Sylvia shall be the diversion! She shall stay over the New Year with us; Miss Munns shall go to her friend and talk over old times; nurse shall visit her sister and have a rest after her hard work; I will look after Sylvia, and Sylvia shall flirt with the boys, and keep them happy. It’s a perfectly charming arrangement all round!” “My dear!” cried Aunt Margaret in horrified protest against the last item on the programme. But Sylvia gave a chuckle of cheerful complacency, and, so far from being overcome, looked so much revived by the prospect that there could be no doubt as to the expediency of the proposed visit, so far as health at least was concerned. Miss Munns went through the form of protesting, but her objections were easily waved aside, for to tell the truth she was only too ready to be persuaded, and her objections had no deeper root than the belief that it was not polite to seize too eagerly on an invitation. “I could not think of it, my dear! Such an upset for you. You don’t know how much work an invalid makes in the house! She has to be carried up and down stairs, and waited on hand and foot!” “I have three big strong boys, and you have only women in the house. Pat could put her in his pocket, and not know there was anything there!” “My dear—how can you! It would take up your spare room, too, and make so much ringing at the bell with nurse coming in the morning and the doctor in the afternoon.” “But what a lesson it would be to me to see them attending to her! So useful for the next time the boys break their legs! I love Whitey, and feel better for it every time I see her sweet, kind face.” “If you had had to prepare meals at all hours of the night and day, you would be sick of the sight of a nurse, however sweet she might look! I don’t see why you should be upset, my dear, for the sake of my friend.” “Dear Miss Munns, I am thinking even more of my own friend. It is selfishness which makes me want to have Sylvia with me. We would enjoy being together and talking over our troubles just as you do. Please let her come!” “Troubles, my dear—troubles? Has your cook given notice?” cried Miss Munns, her mind flying at once to domestic matters, and dwelling thereon with accustomed enjoyment. She had so many stories to tell of cooks who had left their places immediately before Christmas, and of the tragic consequences which followed, that the original subject of discussion took a secondary position in her thoughts, and when Bridgie began placidly to discuss arrangements, she fell into the trap with innocent alacrity. Sylvia could hardly believe her ears. It seemed quite too good to be true. The week’s holiday held out glorious possibilities of enjoyment, and she began at once to count the hours which must elapse before her departure. <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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