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<h3>Chapter Nineteen.</h3> <h4>A Tea-Party.</h4> Jack kept his resolve of avoiding dangerous tête-à-têtes with Sylvia Trevor, and kept it in so pleasant and friendly a manner that no one suspected his motives save the person most concerned. She knew only too well that a wall of division had suddenly risen between them, but though her heart ached she carried her proud little head more erect than ever, and was so very, very lively and pleasant that Jack in his turn was deceived, and believed that she was relieved by his absence. When they met, as meet they did from time to time, they laughed and joked, and teased each other about little family jokes, and Bridgie listened delightedly, and told herself that it did Jack all the good in the world to meet Sylvia, for he was growing so much quieter, and seemed so worried over that horrid old business. Miss Munns, however, had the same complaint to make about her niece, and delivered herself of many homilies on the subject. “Extremes,” she said, “extremes, my dear, ought always to be avoided. To be constantly running from one extreme to another shows an unbalanced character. A medium path is the wisest which one can choose, and one should show neither undue elation nor foundless depression at the events of life. I remember a proverb which we used to quote as children: ‘Laugh in the morning, cry before night!’—and there is a great deal of truth in it, too. High spirits are bound to be brought low before very long.” “Well, I think it’s a horrid proverb and a very wicked one into the bargain!” cried Sylvia hotly. “It sounds as if God disliked seeing one happy, and I believe He loves it and means it, and tries to teach us that it is a duty! He made the world as bright as He could for us to live in, with the sunshine and the flowers, and He made all the little animals skip and bound, and play games among themselves, so it stands to reason that He expects men and women to be happy too, especially young ones.” “Exactly! Precisely! Just what I say! I was just pointing out to you, my love, that it is over an hour since you made a remark, and that such depression of spirits was very trying to me as your companion,” cried Miss Munns, with an air of triumph. “After the long period of anxiety through which I have passed, I think I am entitled to expect some cheering society.” “But then, you see, I might cry before evening!” retorted Sylvia pertly, and had the satisfaction of feeling that she had been rude to her elders, and put herself hopelessly in the wrong, as Miss Munns took up her stocking-bag and began to darn, drooping her eyelids with an air of stony displeasure. Sylvia glanced at her from time to time during the next half-hour, and felt ashamed of herself, and wished she were sweet-tempered like Bridgie, and thought how nice it would be if she could learn to think before she spoke, and be cautious and prudent, and never say what she was sorry for afterwards. She also wished that Aunt Margaret would not look so particularly old and frail this morning of all others. How thin she was! What great big hollows she had in her cheeks! It was rather dreadful to be old like that, and have no one to love and care for one best of all, no one but a thoughtless girl, who was never so grateful as she ought to be, and sometimes even really impertinent. The wave of penitence could not be repressed, and she jumped from her seat with her characteristic impetuosity, and threw her arms round her aunt’s shoulders. “I’m sorry I answered you back, auntie; it was horrid of me. I’ve been a great trouble to you this winter, but I really am awfully grateful for all your goodness. Do give me a kiss, and say you forgive me!” “Well, well, well, my dear child, don’t be so impetuous! You have nearly pulled the cap off my head. Extremes, as I said before, always extremes! Do please try to exercise some self-control. I quite understand that you are troubled about your foot, but as the doctor says it is only a question of time, and if you are patient for a month or two more, you will be able to go about as well as ever. There is no necessity to brood about it as you do, no necessity at all!” Sylvia was not brooding about her foot, but she did not choose to say so to Miss Munns, and her silence being accepted as a sign of submission, the old lady became so mollified as to suggest that the two Miss O’Shaughnessys should be invited to tea forthwith. Afternoon tea under Miss Munns’s régime was a more formal meal than is usually the case, and also a trifle more solid, for it was followed by no dinner, but a supper of cocoa and potted meat served at nine o’clock. This arrangement was one of Sylvia’s minor trials in life, but Pixie O’Shaughnessy saw great compensations in a tea where you really sat up to the table, and had jam in a pot, and a loaf, and scones, and eggs. It fascinated her to see how the table was laid, with a white cloth spread diamond-wise under the tea-tray, and the different viands dotted about on the green baize. Miss Munns boiled her own water, and ladled the tea out of a little silver caddy, and dipped the bottom of each cup in water before it was filled to prevent slippings on the saucer. She had a kettle-holder worked in cross-stitch—red wool roses on a black wool background—and a cosy ornamented with a wreath of bead flowers. The eggs were boiled to order, hard or soft, just as you liked, in a silver pot filled with methylated spirits out of a fascinating, thimble-like measure. Pixie watched the various preparations with rapt attention, while the two elder girls chatted together at the end of the table. “I want you to give me Whitey’s address,” Bridgie said, “so that I can send her some flowers. Esmeralda sent me a hamper this morning, so I am rather rich and would like to share my goad things. You said she was nursing a case in the city, so she probably has no flowers, and it’s cheery to have boxes coming in as a surprise. It’s so hard for nurses to live in a constant atmosphere of depression and sickness. When one is ill for a long time, as you were, one gets so bored and wearied by the monotony of the sick-room, and it’s such bliss to be free again, and speak at the pitch of your voice, and be done with medicines, and pulses, and temperatures, and tiresome rules and regulations, but the nurse never gets free. Just when things are beginning to get cheerful, she goes away to another darkened room and another anxious household, and the whole programme begins over again. They love their work, of course, but it must be very hard sometimes. Don’t you think so?” “I—I—” Sylvia pursed up her lips and elevated her eyebrows in deprecatory fashion. “I never thought of it! It does sound horrid when you put it like that, but I’m afraid I just took it for granted that it was their work. Whitey never grumbled. She left that to me, and was always cheerful, though I found out afterwards that she had been awfully anxious about her sister. I wish I had thought of sending her flowers!” “Send these—do!” cried Bridgie eagerly. “She will like them better from you, and I don’t mind a bit so long as she gets them. I’ll send over the box, and you shall address it and put in a little note. Yes, you must, because I felt rather mean about not bringing some for yourself, but there were not very many, and as I was going into town I couldn’t resist taking some to the woman in the waiting-room.” “The woman in the— What do you mean?” Bridgie laughed easily. “At London, of course. There are several waiting-rooms at our station, but I go to the dullest of all, where there is hardly a gleam of light, and one day I saw the woman staring so longingly at some flowers which a lady was carrying. Since then I have generally taken her a little bunch when I go up to town, and it is quite pathetic the way she grabs them. She knows me now, and looks so pleased to see me!” That was an easy thing to imagine. Sylvia pictured to herself the long, monotonous day in that dreary little room, the constant hope which reached its fulfilment when the door swung open and Bridgie’s face smiled a greeting, leaving behind her the fragrant blossoms to sweeten the hours with their own perfume, and the remembrance of another’s care. Such a simple thing to do! Such an easy thing! Why had she never thought of it herself? She would have done it gladly enough if it had occurred to her mind: it was not heart that was wanted, but thought! Oh, what a number of lives might be brightened, what an army of good deeds would be accomplished if people would only “think!” “Well, my dear, I only hope she was a decent woman, and worthy of your kindness,” said Miss Munns primly. “A lazy life, I call it. I’ve no opinion of people who make their living by sitting still all day. I had occasion to wait at a station some little time ago, and entered into conversation with the woman in charge. She said she was a widow, and I advised her to use my furniture-polish, for the woodwork was in a disgraceful condition, and she answered me back in a most unbecoming manner. I have done a great deal of charitable work in my day, and am on three committees at the present moment, so I am not easily taken in. “I have been investigating cases for relief this very afternoon, and if you’ll believe me in one house where they asked for help there was a musical-box upon the table! The woman said it was given to her by an old mistress, and that it amused the children while she did her work. I told her we did not undertake to relieve cases who could afford to keep musical instruments. I don’t know what the poor are coming to in these days. She must dispose of it before I can have anything to do with her.” “But ’twas a present to her! It’s not polite to give away presents. Who do you want her to give it to?” queried Pixie, with the wide-eyed stare which always made Miss Munns feel so hot and discomposed. She frowned and fidgeted with the kettle, while Pixie continued to discuss the situation. “I know what it is to have children about when there’s something to do. Mrs Wallace gave me a book the other day, and the schemes I made to get time to look at the pictures! I was supposed to have gone out for a walk, and they were to prepare a surprise for me when I got back. And ’twas a surprise! They’d pretended to be savages, and pulled all the feathers out of my hat to stick in their hair!” “Very ill-mannered and impertinent I call it! I hope you gave them a good scolding?” “I did not,” said Pixie calmly. “I don’t like scolding meself, and it makes me worse. I merely remarked that it was a pity, as I’d have to sew them back again instead of playing games. ’Twas dull work watching me sew, and I didn’t disturb myself with hurrying. Ye couldn’t bribe them within yards of me hat this last week!” “Humph! When I was a child I was whipped when I did wrong, and that was the end of it. But things have changed since then, and time will prove which was the best system. Another cup of tea, Miss Bridgie? I hope you have good news of your sister and the little boy?” “Yes, thank you, Miss Munns. They are both well, and we are hoping to see them quite soon. They come up to their town house at the beginning of May, and we expect to have quite a gay time. Esmeralda is bringing a house-party of old Irish friends with her, and it will be delightful to meet again. She always loved entertaining, and was clever in devising novelties, and now that she has plenty of money she can do as she likes without thinking of the cost. You must get your fineries ready, Sylvia. There will be lots of invitations for you next month.” Sylvia’s smile was less whole-hearted than it would have been if one sentence had been omitted from Bridgie’s announcement. “Old friends from Ireland” would of a surety include Miss Mollie Burrell, and Esmeralda would see that Jack made the most of his opportunity. It would not be exactly pleasure to accept invitations for the sake of seeing other people flirting together, while she herself sat alone in a corner. “I shan’t go!” she told herself. “If she asks me I shall refuse. I don’t care to be patronised at Park Lane or anywhere else. I’d rather stay at home and play cribbage in Rutland Road.” But all the same in the depths of her heart she knew well that when the time came she would not have enough resolution to say no. The temptation to obtain a glimpse of the fashionable world of which she had read so much and seen too little would be too great to be resisted; she would go even if it were to have her heart stabbed with a fresh pain, and to come home to weep herself to sleep! “My dear, your sister will have plenty of friends to ask without thinking of Sylvia. She won’t find it plain sailing looking after a big house like that. I should advise her to engage a housekeeper if she doesn’t want to be cheated right and left. I know what servants are when the mistress is never in the kitchen to look after the scraps. I daresay I might be able to help her to find a suitable woman in connection with our different agencies. I’ll inquire for you if you think she would like it.” “Dear Miss Munns, how kind of you! I’ll write to Esmeralda at once, and I daresay she would be most grateful. You make me quite ashamed of myself when I think of all the work you do, and how lazy and useless I am in comparison!” cried Bridgie earnestly. Her grey eyes were fixed on Miss Munns’s face with the sweetest, most unaffected admiration, and Sylvia looked at them both and thought many thoughts. Miss Munns did indeed give both time and strength to charitable work, and withal a generous share of her small income, but her interest was of the head, not of the heart, and she was sublimely ignorant of her failure to help or comfort. Bridgie thought she was not helping at all, and was ashamed of herself because she was on no committees, and knew nothing of authorised agencies. Her ignorance was so sweet that it would be a sin to enlighten it, but there was something in Sylvia’s expression which aroused her friend’s curiosity. “What are you thinking of, Sylvia?” she asked. “Something nice?” “Very nice!” said Sylvia, smiling. She had just recalled a quotation which seemed as though it might have been written to describe Bridgie O’Shaughnessy— <blockquote> “Sweet souls without reproach or blot, Who do God’s will and know it not!” </blockquote> <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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