This is the third book of the Pixie O’Shaughnessy trilogy. In a story of love lost and found, Pixie matures from an inexperienced young lass into a wise woman.
By : Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey (1857 - 1917)
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When Pixie O’Shaughnessy had reached her twentieth birthday it was borne in upon her with the nature of a shock that she was not beautiful. Hitherto a buoyant and innocent self-satisfaction, coupled with the atmosphere of love and admiration by which she was surrounded in the family circle, had succeeded in blinding her eyes to the very obvious defects of feature which the mirror portrayed. But suddenly, sharply, her eyes were opened.
“Did it ever occur to you, Bridgie, my dear, that I’ve grown-up plain?” she demanded of her sister, Mrs Victor, as the two sat by the fire one winter afternoon, partaking luxuriously of strong tea and potato cakes, and at the sound of such a surprising question Mrs Victor started as if a crack of thunder had suddenly pealed through the quiet room. She stared in amazement; her big, grey eyes widened dramatically.
“My good child,” she demanded sternly, “whatever made you think of asking such a preposterous question?”
“’Twas borne in on me!” sighed Pixie sadly. “It’s the way with life; ye go jog-trotting along, blind and cheerful, until suddenly ye bang your head against a wall, and your eyes are opened! ’Twas the same with me. I looked at myself every day, but I never saw. Habit, my dear, blindfolded me like a bandage, and looking at good-looking people all day long it seemed only natural that I should look nice too. But this morning the sun shone, and I stood before the glass twisting about to try on my new hat, and, Bridgie, the truth was revealed! My nose!”
“What’s the matter with your nose?” demanded Mrs Victor. Her own sweet, delicately cut face was flushed with anger, and she sat with stiffened back staring across the fireplace as if demanding compensation for a personal injury.
Pixie sighed, and helped herself to another slice of potato cake.
“It scoops!” she said plaintively. “As you love me, Bridgie, can you deny it scoops?” And as if to illustrate the truth of her words she twisted her head so as to present her little profile for her sister’s inspection.
Truly it was not a classic outline! Sketched in bare outline it would have lacerated an artist’s eye, but then more things than line go to the making up a girlish face: there is youth, for instance, and a blooming complexion; there is vivacity, and sweetness, and an intangible something which for want of a better name we call “charm.” Mrs Victor beheld all these attributes in her sister’s face, and her eyes softened as they looked, but her voice was still resentful.
“Of course it scoops. It always did scoop. I like it to scoop.”
“I like them straight!” persisted Pixie. “And it isn’t as if it stopped at the nose. There’s my mouth—”
Bridgie’s laugh had a tender, reminiscent ring.
“The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky! D’you remember the Major’s old name? He was proud of your mouth. And you had no chin as a child. You ought to be thankful, Pixie, that you’ve grown to a chin!”
“I am,” cried Pixie with unction. “It would be awful to slope down into your neck. All the same, me dear, if it was my eyes that were bigger, and my mouth that was smaller, it would be better for all concerned.” She was silent for some moments, staring thoughtfully in the fire. From time to time she frowned, and from time to time she smiled; Bridgie divined that a thought was working, and lay back in her seat, amusedly watching its development. “There’s a place in Paris,” continued Pixie thoughtfully at last, “an institute sort of place, where they repair noses! You sort of go in, and they look at you, and there are models and drawings, and you choose your nose! The manager is an expert, and if you choose a wrong style he advises, and says another would suit you better. I’d love a Greek one myself; it’s so chic to float down straight from the forehead, but I expect he’d advise a blend that wouldn’t look too épatant with my other features.—It takes a fortnight, and it doesn’t hurt. Your nose is gelatine, not bone; and it costs fifty pounds.”
“Wicked waste!” cried Mrs Victor, with all the fervour of a matron whose own nose is beyond reproach. “Fifty pounds on a nose! I never heard of such foolish extravagance.”
“Esmeralda paid eighty for a sealskin coat. A nose would last for life, while if a single moth got inside the brown paper—whew!” Pixie waved her hands with the Frenchiness of gesture which was the outcome of an education abroad, and which made an amusing contrast with an Irish accent, unusually pronounced. “I’d think nothing of running over to Paris for a fortnight’s jaunt, and having the nose thrown in. Fancy me walking in on you all, before you’d well realised I was away, smart and smiling with a profile like Clytie, or a sweet little acquiline, or a neat and wavey one, like your own. You wouldn’t know me!”
“I shouldn’t!” said Bridgie eloquently.
“Now let’s pretend!” Pixie hitched her chair nearer to the fire, and placed her little feet on the fender with an air of intense enjoyment. In truth, tea-time, and the opportunity which it gave of undisturbed parleys with Bridgie, ranked as one of the great occasions of life. Every day there seemed something fresh and exciting to discuss, and the game of “pretend” made unfailing appeal to the happy Irish natures, but it was not often that such an original and thrilling topic came under discussion. A repaired nose! Pixie warmed to the theme with the zest of a skilled raconteur. ... “You’d be sitting here, and I’d walk in in my hat and veil—a new-fashioned scriggley veil, as a sort of screen. We’d kiss. If it was a long kiss, you’d feel the point, being accustomed to a button, and that would give it away, but I’d make it short so you’d notice nothing, and I’d sit down with my back to the light, and we’d talk. ‘Take off your hat,’ you’d say. ‘In a moment,’ I’d answer. ‘Not yet, me dear, my hair’s untidy.’ ‘You look like a visitor,’ you’d say, ‘with your veil drawn down.’ ‘It’s a French one,’ I’d say. ‘It becomes me, doesn’t it? Three francs fifty,’ and you’d frown, and stare, and say, ‘Does it? I don’t know! You look—different, Pixie. You don’t look—yourself!’”
The real Pixie gurgled with enjoyment, and Bridgie Victor gurgled in response.
“Then I’d protest, and ask what was the matter, and say if there was anything, it must be the veil, and if there was a change wasn’t it honestly for the better, and I’d push up my veil and smile at you; smile languidly across the room. I can see your face, poor darling! All scared and starey, while I turned round s–lowly, s–lowly, until I was sideways towards you, with me elegant Grecian nose...”
Bridgie shuddered.
“I’d not live through it! It would break my heart. With a Grecian nose you might be Patricia, but you couldn’t possibly be Pixie. It’s too horrible to think of!”
But Pixie had in her nature a reserve of obstinacy, and in absolutely good-natured fashion could “hang on” to a point through any amount of discouragement.
“Now, since you mention it, that’s another argument in my favour,” she said quickly. “It’s hard on a girl of twenty to be bereft of her legal name because of incompatibility with her features. Now, with a Grecian nose—”
Bridgie sat up suddenly, and cleared her throat. The time had come to remember her own position as married sister and guardian, and put a stop to frivolous imaginings.
“May I ask,” she demanded clearly, “exactly in what manner you would propose to raise the fifty pounds? Your nose is your own to do what you like with—or will be at the end of another year—but—”
“The fifty pounds isn’t! I know it,” said Pixie. She did not sigh, as would have seemed appropriate at such a moment, but exhibited rather a cheerful and gratified air, as though her own poverty were an amusing peculiarity which added to the list of her attractions.
“Of course, my dear, nobody ever dreamt for a moment it could be done, but it’s always interesting to pretend. Don’t we amuse ourselves for hours pretending to be millionaires, when you’re all of a flutter about eighteen-pence extra in the laundry bill? I wonder at you, Bridgie, pretending to be practical.”
“I’m sorry,” said Bridgie humbly. A pang of conscience pierced her heart, for had it not been her own extravagance which had swelled the laundry bill by that terrible eighteen-pence? Penitence engendered a more tender spirit, and she said gently—
“We love your looks, Pixie. To us you seem lovely and beautiful.”
“Bless your blind eyes! I know I do. But,” added Pixie astonishingly, “I wasn’t thinking of you!”
“Not!” A moment followed of sheer, gaping surprise, for Bridgie Victor was so accustomed to the devotion of her young sister, so placidly, assured that the quiet family life furnished the girl with, everything necessary for her happiness, that the suggestion of an outside interest came as a shock. “Not!” she repeated blankly. “Then—then—who?”
“My lovers!” replied Pixie calmly.
And looking back through the years, it always seemed to Bridgie Victor that with the utterance of those words the life of Pixie O’Shaughnessy entered upon a new and absorbing phase...
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