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<h3>Chapter Twenty Two.</h3> <h4>Great Expectations.</h4> A whole week passed by before Sylvia had an opportunity of telling her great news to her friend. To begin with, Bridgie was absent from home for three days and nights, attending a ball and a water-party given by Esmeralda for the entertainment of her house-party, and to neither of which Sylvia had received an invitation. To be sure, it was no use going to a dance when dancing was an impossibility, and the getting in and out of boats would have been painful and difficult, but all the same Sylvia felt slighted and out in the cold, and, though absent in the flesh, mentally followed every stage in the two entertainments, and tortured herself by imagining Jack’s light-hearted enjoyment and absorption in other company than her own. When Bridgie returned home, Miss Munns insisted on several expeditions to town, and also to surrounding suburbs, where lived those family connections to whom it was clearly the girl’s duty to say good-bye. The old lady was quite inclined to enjoy the little stir of preparation involved by the trip abroad, and would allow no one but herself to interview the lady in whose charge her niece was to travel. That she was entirely satisfied was the best possible guarantee for Sylvia’s safety, and Mistress Courier Rickman promised to be ready to start the moment the expected wire was received. Miss Munns laid in a store of patent medicines, stocked her niece’s workbox with every imaginable useful, and waxed quite affectionate in her manner, but all the same it was easy to see that she would be relieved to get rid of her charge, and settle down once more in the old groove. It requires a great deal of forbearance and unselfish imagination to enable a young person and an old to live together happily, and the lack of these qualities is the explanation of many miserable homes. Old people should remember that the peaceful monotony which has become their own idea of happiness, must by the laws of nature spell a very different word to buoyant, restless youth, and also that there comes a stage when the children are not children any longer, when they are entitled to their own opinions, and may even—most reverently be it said—understand what is best for themselves, better than those of a different generation; and the young people in their turn should remember the long years of tender care and devotion which they have received, and be infinitely patient in their turn. They, who are so impatient of passing ailments, should try to imagine how it would feel to be always feeble, and to see in the future the certainty of growing more and more suffering and incapable. They should realise that it is in their power to make the sunshine of declining days, and thereby to store up for themselves a lasting joy, instead of a reproach. In looking back upon those two years spent in Rutland Road, Sylvia forgot her aunt’s lack of sympathy, her prosy talk, and repeated fault-finding; they were lost in remembering the true kindness of heart which lay beneath all mannerism. What she was never able to forget was her own impatience and neglect of opportunity. Once or twice as the days passed by, Bridgie O’Shaughnessy ran to the gate to intercept her friend as she passed, and exchange a hurried greeting, but Sylvia would not trust her great news to such occasions as these. She waited until an opportunity arose for an uninterrupted talk, and as she waited a desire awoke and grew in intensity, to herself tell Jack of the coming separation. Bridgie must, of course, be informed of the journey to France and Germany, but she would wait until the evening of Esmeralda’s reception before disclosing the full extent of her travels. When she and Jack were sitting together in one of the charming little niches in which the rooms abounded, he would naturally begin to talk of her journey, and she would smile and look unconcerned, and, in the most cheerful and natural of tones, announce that she was not coming back to Rutland Road, that it would probably be a year at least before she saw England again. Surely when he heard this for the first time, when it was burst upon him as an utter surprise, she would read in his face whether she had been right in imagining that he really “cared,” or if it had been a delusion born of girlish vanity. She would be quite calm and serene, would not in any way pose as a martyr or seem to expect any expression of distress, but she could not—could not bring herself to go away without making this one innocent little effort to solve the mystery which meant so much to her happiness and peace of mind. So Sylvia purposely kept out of Bridgie’s way during the ten days after the receipt of her letter, and when they met it was easy to tell just what she chose, and keep silent about the rest, for Bridgie was not one of the curious among womenkind, and never dreamt of questioning and cross-questioning as to the plans of another. She simply took for granted that Sylvia would return to her old quarters, after a pleasant summer holiday, just as she was happily assured that her friend felt nothing but purest joy and satisfaction in the prospect before her. “Oh, me darling,” she cried rapturously, “I am delighted for you! Isn’t that the very best news that could happen? So soon, too, and a lovely jaunt together in the beautiful summer weather. ’Twill make you strong again in no time, and you will write me long letters telling me all your adventures, and ’twill be almost as good as having them myself. I couldn’t tell you when I’ve been so pleased!” “Humph!” said Sylvia disconsolately. Would Jack be delighted also, and hail her departure with rapturous congratulations? “Won’t you miss me? Won’t you feel lonely when I’m not here?” she questioned earnestly, and Bridgie smiled a cheery reassurement. “I’ll have Esmeralda, you see! She will be here until the end of the season, and then we are going up to Scotland with her. We shall be so busy and taken up with one thing and another that I shan’t have time to miss you, darling.” “Humph!” said Sylvia once more. This was intended for comfort, she was aware, but it was not the kind of comfort that was required. Bridgie O’Shaughnessy might be so unselfish as to rejoice because a friend did not suffer by her absence, but Sylvia longed to hear that she was indispensable, and that nothing and no one could fill her place. It was another bitter drop in her cup to realise that the O’Shaughnessy girls were so closely united that any friend must needs be at a discount in comparison with a sister. “Ye don’t seem as excited as I should have expected. Is anything worrying you, dear?” Bridgie inquired, and Sylvia hurriedly searched for a plausible excuse and found it in her father’s health. In reality she was not disquieted by his reference to his own weakness, for he had been complaining for months back without apparently growing worse, and she was convinced that the coming rest would speedily restore him to health. It made an excuse, however, and Bridgie sympathised and offered a dozen kindly, unpractical suggestions as her custom was. Then the conversation drifted to the all-important reception which was so close at hand, and to which both girls were looking forward with such expectation. Bridgie related the latest arrangements for the entertainment of some three hundred guests, while her friend listened with eager attention. Esmeralda was sparing neither money nor pains to make the evening one of the events of the season. Singers and musicians whose names were known throughout Europe were to perform at intervals in the great drawing-room; the hall and staircase were to be transformed into a bower of roses, pink La France roses here, there, and everywhere, wreathed round the banisters, massed on the window-sills and mantelpieces, hanging in great golden baskets from the ceiling. Rose-coloured shades were to soften the glare of the electric lights; the air was to be kept cool by great blocks of ice, and scented fountains rising from banks of moss and ferns; the conservatory was to be illuminated by jewelled lanterns. It sounded like a fairy-tale to the girl in the unfashionable suburb, and she would have been less than human if she had not counted the hours which must elapse before the evening arrived. Bridgie thought it a pity that the guests could not be labelled for the edification of the unsophisticated, but Sylvia’s greatest interest was centred on figures which were too familiar to be mistaken. The whole entertainment was, in truth, but a gorgeous setting to that conversation with Jack, which might be their last tête-à-tête for so long to come. The dressmaker who was preparing Miss Trevor’s dress for the great occasion had seldom had more difficulty in satisfying an employer, and the sum total expended on fineries would have horrified Miss Munns if she had been allowed to see the bills. Even Sylvia winced when she added up the figures, but she repeated sturdily the old phrase, “Dad won’t mind!” and felt secure that she would meet with no worse reprimand than a little good-natured banter. On the whole she had been very economical during her stay in England, and her conscience did not upbraid her concerning this one extravagance. <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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