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<h3>Chapter Fifteen.</h3> <h4>Pixie Scores a Success.</h4> A butler came to the door, a solemn-looking butler, with a white tie and immaculate black clothes, but he seemed rather stupid for his age, for he asked twice over before he could grasp the fact that Pixie had called in answer to the advertisement, and then stared fixedly at her all the time he was escorting her to the room where the other lady applicants were waiting their turns. Pixie gasped as she looked round and saw ladies, ladies everywhere, on the row of leather chairs ranged along by the wall, on the sofa, on the two easy-lounges by the fireside,—old ladies, young ladies, middle-aged ladies, elderly ladies, shabby and dressy, fat and thin, but all distinctly past their first youth, and all most obviously French. They gaped at the new-comer, even as the butler had done, and she bowed graciously from side to side, and said, “Bon jour, mesdames!” in her most Parisian manner, then squeezed herself into a little corner by the window and listened entranced to the never-ending stream of conversation. A room full of Englishwomen would under the circumstances have preserved a depressed and solemn silence, but these good ladies chattered like magpies, with such shruggings of shoulders, such waving of hands, such shrillness of emphasis, that Pixie felt as if she were once more domiciled in the Avenue Gustave. The lady in the plaid dress, who occupied the next chair, asked her with frank curiosity to recount then how she found herself in such a position, and, being assured that she was indeed applying for the situation, prophesied that it would never march! She turned and whispered loudly to her companion, “Behold her, the poor pigeon! One sees well that she has the white heart!” But the companion was less amiable, and enraged herself because there were already applicants enough, and with each new-comer her own chance of success became less assured. At intervals of five or ten minutes the butler returned and marshalled the next in order to the presence of the lady of the house, but, short as were the interviews, it was a weary wait before it came to Pixie’s turn, and she wondered fearfully whether Bridgie had taken fright at her absence, and was even now searching the streets in a panic of alarm. The hands of the clock pointed to ten minutes to six before the butler gave the longed-for signal, and she smiled at him in her most friendly manner as she crossed the room towards him. Without any exchange of words she divined that he took more interest in herself than in any of the other applicants, and also that for some mysterious reason he was sorry for her, and imagined that she was making a mistake, and the smile was meant at once as thanks and reassurement. They walked together down the slippery floor, such a slippery, shiny floor, that one felt as if skates would be almost more in keeping than boots, and finally arrived at a cosy little room at the back of the house, where a tired-looking gentleman and a bored-looking lady stood ready to receive her. They looked at each other, they looked at the butler, they looked again at the little pig-tailed figure, with short skirts and beaming, childlike face, and their faces became blank with astonishment. “Bon jour, mademoiselle!” began the lady uncertainly. “Good day to ye!” said Pixie in response, and at that the bewilderment became more marked than ever. The lady sat down and drew a long, weary sigh. She was handsome and young, but very, very thin, and looked as if she had hardly enough energy to go through any more interviews. “Then—then you are not French after all?” “I forgot!” sighed Pixie sadly. She sat down and hitched her chair nearer the fire in sociable fashion. “It’s just like me to make up me mind, and then forget at the right moment! I intended to let you hear me speak French, before I broke it to you that I’m Irish and all my people before me.” “I almost think I should have discovered it for myself!” said the lady, looking as if she were not quite sure whether to be amused or irritated. “But if that is so, what is your business here? I advertised for a French lady.” “You did. I read the advertisement, but if I’m not French I’m just as good, for I’ve just last month returned from Paris, and the lady where I was staying was most particular about my accent. Over in Ireland I was so quick in picking up the brogue that I had to be sent to England to get rid of it, and I was just as handy with another language. If I’d remembered to answer you in French, you would never have known the difference between me and those old ladies who came in first.” “Old ladies, indeed! I’ll never advertise again if this is what it means!” sighed the lady sotto voce. She looked across the room, met a gleam of amusement in her husband’s eyes, and said in a tolerant voice, “Well, then, let me hear you now! I am a pretty good French scholar myself, so you won’t find me easy to deceive!” “Perfectly, madam, perfectly!” cried Pixie, gesticulating assent. She found none of the difficulty in settling what to talk about which handicaps most people under similar circumstances, but poured forth a stream of commonplaces in such fluent, rapid French as showed that she had good reason for boasting of proficiency. When she finished, the lady looked at her husband with a triumphant air, and cried— “There! It shows how important it is for children to learn a language while they are still young. It can never be mastered so well if it is left until they are grown-up.” Then turning to Pixie— “Yes, indeed, you speak French charmingly. I congratulate you, and hope you may find it very useful. You are so young that you cannot have finished your own education. Perhaps you are going to school in England?” “’Deed I am not. I want to teach instead. My brother is a very grand gentleman, but he’s in difficulties. He has a fine estate in Ireland, but it is let, and he’s over in London trying to make enough money to get back again, and that’s none too easy, as you may know yourself, and if I can earn some money it will keep me from being a burden on me friends. I’ve answered quite a lot of advertisements, but there was nothing really to suit me until I saw your own yesterday morning.” “I see! May I ask if your mother knows what you are doing—if you are here with her consent?” Pixie sighed at that, and shook her head in melancholy fashion. “I’ve no mother. She died when I was young, and the Major’s horse threw him two years ago, and I’ve been an orphan ever since. There’s only Bridgie now!” “Poor child!” The lady looked at the quaint figure with a kindly glance, thinking of the two little girls upstairs, and picturing them starting out to fight the world when they should still have been safe within the shelter of the schoolroom. “I’m sorry to hear that. Bridgie, I suppose, is your sister? Does she know what you are doing? Would she be willing for you to apply for a situation in this manner?” “Maybe not at first, but I’d beguile her. I’m the youngest, and I always get my own way. I told Sylvia Trevor, who was staying with us, and she was very kind, giving me good advice not to do it, but it is to be a surprise for Bridgie to help her to pay the bills. If ye want money, what else can you do than try to earn it?” “But not at your age, dear! You are too young yet awhile!” Mrs Wallace crossed the room and seating herself in a chair by Pixie’s side, laid a hand on her shoulder with quite affectionate pressure. “I appreciate your kindly intention, but I am afraid it will be a good many years before you are ready to take a governess’s place. You saw yourself what a difference there was between yourself and the other ladies who came to see me to-day!” “I’m more amusing! Ye wouldn’t believe how amusing I can be when I try! At school there was a prize which was given to the girl who was nicest to the other girls, and they all voted for me, and I’ve got it now and could bring it to show you if you liked. I’m not exactly clever, and there was no chance for anyone else at the bottom of the class, but you didn’t say a word about teaching, except French, and I could talk that all day long!” “Yes! I should be quite satisfied if my girlies spoke as well as you do. Your accent is charming, and you have just the air, but—but you are so young—so ridiculously young!” “So are the children. They’d like me best!” maintained Pixie sturdily, and at that Mr Wallace burst into a laugh. His eyes had been twinkling for some time past, and he had been stroking his moustache as if to conceal his amusement, but now he made no more disguise, but laughed and laughed again, as if he were thoroughly enjoying himself. “Upon my word, Edith, I believe she is right! If you consider the children’s feelings, there is no doubt how they would decide. If you want them kept happy and bright, now’s your chance! After our earlier experiences this is really quite refreshing, and I am beginning to think your advertisement has been of some use after all. How would it be if you interviewed Miss Bridgie—I didn’t catch the second name—and if she is agreeable, you might perhaps make some temporary arrangement!” “O’Shaughnessy. It’s Irish! I’m sure Bridgie would say yes, for it would be occupation for me in the mornings, and so near that I could come by myself. We live in Rutland Road, but the house is so small ye would hardly notice it if you passed by. Jack says if he could get London rents in Ireland, he’d never do another honest day’s work while he lived. You could put the whole place down in the hall at Knock Castle, and never know it was there, and Bridgie says she knows every blade of grass in the garden. We had the loveliest grounds at Knock, all the flowers coming up anyway, and volunteers drilling in the park, and the glass-houses full of ferrets and white mice, and tomatoes, and everything you can think of. If I could make some money we should be able to go back sooner than we thought, and Bridgie would be so pleased. When shall I say you are coming to see her?” “I have not promised to come at all. You must not leap at conclusions. It is a most ridiculous scheme, but really—” Mrs Wallace laughed in her turn, and going up to where her husband stood, exchanged a few whispered confidences, some scattered words of which reached the listener’s ear. “Typically Irish! Preposterous! No harm trying. What about Viva? So difficult to manage.” The discussion was still progressing when from above sounded a sudden piercing cry, mounting ever higher and higher, the note sustained in evident but determined effort. Footsteps raced across the floor, followed by a bang as of some heavy wooden structure, a murmured protest, and two distinct sets of shrieks, each warring against the other. Mr Wallace pressed his hands to his head, Mrs Wallace sighed, “Oh dear, dear, dear!” in tones of hopeless distress, but Pixie cried eagerly— “Will I run upstairs and try what I can do? Will I make them stop, and laugh instead?” “You’d deserve the Victoria Cross!” the father declared, while the mother hurried to the door, and led the way with rapid footsteps. “They have been brought up by an Indian ayah, and this English nurse doesn’t understand them a bit. They have trying tempers, there is no use denying it, but they are dear little creatures if rightly managed. Oh dear, dear, dear! these dreadful shrieks! They go through my head.” “Let me go in alone. They will listen better if they don’t see you,” said Pixie, and walked undauntedly on to the field of battle. In this instance it was represented by a remarkably handsome and well-filled nursery, and the belligerents took the form of two little girls of four and five, who were seated on the floor, dry-eyed, but crimson-faced from the effort to sustain their shrieks. A box of bricks lay scattered by the window, and an anaemic nurse leant against the wall in an attitude of despair. Pixie walked forward, seated herself on the floor immediately in front of the children, and gazed at them with benign curiosity. There was no anger in her face, no warning of punishment to come, her expression was in such striking contrast with that which they were accustomed to behold on such occasions, that from pure amazement they stopped crying to stare at her in their turn. The moment was hers, and she lost no time in using it. “The fat one,” she said, pointing gravely to the younger of the sisters, “the fat one shouts higher, but the thin one,”—the eloquent finger was turned towards the maid with the golden locks,—“the thin one keeps on longer. You have both won! The prize is that I tell you a story about the Spoopjacks, when they went to fight the Bobityshooties in the Christmas holidays!” Silence. Viva laid her head on one side and considered the project. Inda pouted her lower lip, and burst into the story of her woes. “An’ I was jest finishin’ ze house, and ze chimbleys was getting ready, and she comed against me, an’ I pinched her leg, and she throwed it down, an’ it was all spoiled, an’ the dolls was going to live in it, an’—” “The Spoopjacks live in the lamp-posts. There are seven of them, and they have tin whiskers, and they went to war with the Bobityshooties because they ate all the muffins, and there were none left for tea. So Nicholas Spoopjack bought six rolling-pins and a watering-cart, and melted down his whiskers for guns, and they put on red gaiters and clean pinafores, and marched across the park. The Bobityshooties were resting under the trees, and all the little birds were eating up the muffin crumbs. The Bobityshooties really live in the pantry cupboard, so that was how they found the muffins, but they were spending the day in the country, and Selina Bobityshooty said to her mother—” “Is that in a book?” queried the elder Miss Wallace suddenly. She was an exceedingly precocious young lady, and quick to note the unusual style of the narrative. Sometimes the stories in books were about good little girls with whom she had no sympathy, and even if the heroine were naughty to begin with, she invariably improved at the end, and never, never knocked down her sister’s bricks. The Spoopjacks and Bobityshooties were new acquaintances and promised well, but she wished to be reassured as regards the moral. “Is that written in a book?” “No, it’s out of my head. There are billions and billions of little girls in the world, and not one of them has ever heard what Selina said to her mother. If you will kiss your sister and say you’re sorry, I’ll tell you as a secret. It’s awful exciting!” “All right, I’m sorry, only you pinched me too—go on about Selina!” cried Viva in a breath. She kissed her sister on the cheek, and fat little Inda smiled complacently, and repeated, “Go on ’bout S’lina!” Outside in the passage father and mother looked at each other with sparkling eyes. “My dear, she is worth a fortune to us!” cried Mr Wallace rapturously. “She understands children, and they understand her; the girlies will be as good as gold under her care. I’ll tell Spencer to bring round the carriage and send her home in state, and to-morrow afternoon without fail you must strike a bargain with Mistress Bridgie!” <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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