Joan got up quietly from her knees and crossed to the door. The voice within declared that Geoffrey would call her back, that he would leap after her and clasp her in his arms, as he had done a score of times in like circ.u.mstances, that he would implore forgiveness for his cruel words. She walked slowly, pausing as she went to put a chair against the wall, to alter the position of a vase of flowers. She reached the door and cast a swift glance behind. Geoffrey had gone back to his writing; his pen travelled swiftly across the page; he did not raise his head.

CHAPTER TEN.

PIXIE GIVES JOAN A TONIC.

A romp with the children restored Pixie's elastic spirits, and brought a revived wish for her friends' society. She leaned out of the window and beheld a game of tennis on in obvious need of a fourth player, waved gaily in response to a general beckoning, and tripped downstairs singing a glad refrain. And then, in the corridor outside her boudoir, behold a pale and tragic Esmeralda summoning her with a dramatic hand. Pixie flounced, and a quiver of indignation stiffened her small body. A whole hour of a lovely spring morning had already been spent in struggling to overcome the depression caused by the scene at breakfast, and here was Joan obviously preparing a second edition. Pixie was no n.i.g.g.ard in sympathy, but for the moment she had other views. Two charming young men were waiting without in the sunshine, and any ordinary human girl prefers the sunshine and masculine society, to a room indoors and an hysterical sister. Therefore, being excessively human, Pixie flounced, and looked bored and impatient. She entered the room and shut the door behind her.

"What's the matter _now_?"

The answer was sufficiently unexpected.

"Pixie, if I die will you promise me faithfully to live here and take charge of my orphan boys?"

"I will not!" snapped Pixie sharply. It was just what might have been expected for Esmeralda to picture her own tragic death as the result of a pa.s.sing squall. Quite possibly she had been sitting for the last hour picturing the stages of her own decline and the grief of the survivors.

Strong common sense was the best remedy she could have. "I hope to have my own home to look after. And they are too spoiled. I wouldn't undertake the charge."

"Somebody," croaked Esmeralda deeply, "somebody must look after my boys!"

"Don't you worry about that. Geoffrey'll marry again. They always do when the children are young."

This was deliberate cruelty, but the strain was severe. Stanor was standing, racket in hand, gazing up at the window. The sunshine lit up his handsome face, his expectant smile. Pixie gave another flounce and turned impatiently to meet the next lament; but Esmeralda was silent, her hands were clasped on her knee, and tears--_real_ tears--shone in her eyes. It was a rare thing for Joan to cry; the easy tears which rose to her sisters' eyes in response to any emotion, pleasurable or the reverse, these were not for her. Looking back over the history of their lives, Pixie could count the number of times when she had seen Joan cry.

The outside world vanished from her memory in response to that appeal.

"Esmeralda! _Darling_! You are not ill? You are not really suffering?"

Joan shook her head.

"Quite strong," she murmured miserably; "too strong. Only it seems impossible to live on in such misery. It's gone--the mainspring, everything! I can't drag along! Thank G.o.d, Pixie, you are here! I never could bottle up my feelings. It's Geoffrey--he doesn't love me any more. I'm not imagining it--it's true! He told me himself."

"What did he say?" demanded Pixie practically. She displayed no dismay at the announcement, being used to her sister's exaggerations, and feeling abundantly convinced in her own mind that this was but another example. Geoffrey was cross this morning, but five days' residence under his roof had abundantly demonstrated that his love was not dead.

"Now, what exactly _did_ he say?" she repeated, and Joan faltered out the dread words.

There was silence in the room for a long minute. Then Pixie drew in her breath with a sharp intake. "The _bloom_!" she repeated softly. "The _bloom_!" The beautiful significance of the term seemed to occupy her mind to the exclusion of the personal application. She had a vision of love as the apotheosis of human affection, a wondrous combination of kindliness, sympathy, courtesy, patience, unselfishness--all these, _and something more_--that mysterious, intangible quality which Geoffrey Hilliard had so aptly described. Given "the bloom," affection became idealised, patience a joy, and selfishness ceased to exist, since the well-being of another was preferred before one's own; courtesy and sympathy followed automatically, as attendant spirits who could not be separated. Affection might exist, did often exist, in churlish, unlovely form, giving little happiness either to the giver or the recipient Love, the highest, was something infinitely precious, a treasure to be guarded with infinite care, lest in the stress of life its bloom should be destroyed.

Joan, looking with anxious inquiry in her sister's face, read there an earnestness even exceeding her own.

"Oh, _no_!" cried Pixie strongly. "Not that, not that, Esmeralda. Not the bloom. It mustn't go; it's too precious. It means everything. You mustn't _let_ it go!"

"But I told you it _had_ gone. It's too late."

"No!" Pixie shook her head. "I know better. There's time yet, if you'll be warned. Last night, when you were comforting Jack after his tumble, Geoffrey sat watching you as d.i.c.k watches Bridgie. It can't be all gone, when he looks like that. He has loved you, been proud of you, been patient with you for--how long is it you have been married? Seven years, and you need a lot of patience, Esmeralda! I suppose it's come to this--that you've used up all the patience he has."

It said volumes for Joan's penitence that she allowed such a statement to pa.s.s unchallenged, and even a.s.sented to it with meekness.

"I suppose that's it. For the first few years it was all right. When I got angry he only laughed; then he began to get impatient himself, and this last year things have been going from bad to worse. When he spoke straight out it was easier; there was a row royal, and a grand 'make up'

at the end, but now he's so cold and calm." Esmeralda's lip trembled at the remembrance of the scene downstairs of the averted figure writing stolidly at the desk. She stared before her in silence for a dismal moment, then added sharply: "And what in the world set him off at a tangent this morning, of all others? There have been dozens of times when I should have expected him to be furious, and he's been as mild as a lamb; and then of a sudden, when I was all innocent and unsuspicious, to flare up like that! There's no sense in it!"

"It's always the way with men. You can't reckon on them," announced Pixie, with the seasoned air of one who has endured three husbands at least. "d.i.c.k's the same--an angel of patience till just the moment when you've made sure of him, and then in a moment he snaps off your head--my head, I mean, never Bridgie's. There's too much--bloom." She put her little head on one side and pursed her lips in thought, with the characteristic Pixie air which carried Joan back to the days of childhood. "Now, isn't it odd, Esmeralda, how people cultivate almost every good quality, and leave love to chance? They practise patience and unselfishness, but seem to think love is beyond control. It comes, or--it goes. _Tant mieux_! _Tant pis_! My dear, if I married a husband who loved me as Geoffrey loved you, it would be the big work of my life to keep him at it, and I'd expect it to _be_ work! You get nothing worth having without trouble, so why should you expect an exception for the very _best_ thing? And the poor man deserves some encouragement. _I'd give it to him_!"

Joan's lips twisted into a sad smile.

"You understand a great deal, Pixie--more than I do, it seems, even after seven years! I never looked at things in that light. I just expected Geoffrey to keep on adoring, whatever I did. What made you think such things?"

"Nature!" said Pixie promptly. "And, my dear, I'm clever at loving--I always was. It's my only gift, and I _have_ studied it just as other people study drawing and music. What you have to do, Esmeralda, is to forget everything and every one else for a while, and comfort Geoffrey.

Don't make a scene and worry the poor man. Don't make a grand programme of reformation, for that will put him off at the start. Just begin to-night and be sweet to him for a change. If you feel temper coming on, have it out on me! I'm used to you from a child, and if I get too much of it I can always run away and leave you; Geoffrey can't. It's mean to take advantage of a man that's bound."

"If he _wanted_ to go," began Joan haughtily, then subsided into tears and helplessness. "Pixie! Pixie! It's so difficult! What can I do?"

"D'you need _me_ to tell you? Isn't it the _easiest_ thing in the world to make love to your own husband, in your own house? Talk of propinquity! Always ready, always handy, if you can't manage _that_!

My dear girl, the game's in your own hands."

"Can a leopard change its spots?"

"We're not talking of leopards; we're talking of women--and they _can_ bridle their tongues!"

Again Joan was silent. _Could she_? A great martyrdom, or heroic effort, these she would have faced gladly, counting them a small price to pay for her husband's love; but then how to subdue hasty impulses, to keep a watch over her tongue--this seemed beyond her strength. And yet the treasure which was threatened was of such inestimable value. It was impossible to contemplate life without it. Human life is uncertain, and though she would not allow herself to dwell upon such a possibility, Joan had realised in her heart that a day might dawn when she would have to part from husband or son. Death might come, she might have to say farewell to the dear human presence, but never, never had she imagined for a moment that she might be compelled to live on, having bidden farewell to _love_! Geoffrey her lover, Geoffrey her husband, Geoffrey the father of her boys, was it a fact or a dreadful nightmare that he had sat, untouched by her appeal, and confessed that ... that...

Joan winced, unable to bear the repet.i.tion, and locked her hands more closely on her knee. Pixie glanced furtively through the window.

Stanor had turned back to the tennis-ground and the three-handed game had been resumed. She stifled a pang of disappointment and sat quietly waiting for further confidences, but presently Joan said quietly--

"Thank you, Pixie. Now--will you go? I want to think. You've been very sweet."

"More bracing than sweet, my dear; but it was what you needed!" Pixie rose with an alacrity which the other was, fortunately, too preoccupied to notice, dropped a kiss on the lovely bent neck, and walked quickly from the room. Joan had had the relief which her nature demanded of giving expression to her feelings; now it was best that she should be alone. Pixie had done her best to help, and now sunshine and Stanor were waiting! In another five minutes she was playing tennis as whole-heartedly as though it were her only business in life.

Meanwhile Joan sat alone in her upstairs room, struggling with all the force of her ardent, undisciplined nature to brace herself for the struggle which lay before her. Prayer had become of late a mechanical, stereotype repet.i.tion of phrases; to-day there were no phrases--hardly, indeed, any definite words. In the extreme need of life she took refuge in that voiceless cry for help, that child-like opening of the heart which is the truest relationship between the soul and G.o.d. She sat with closed eyes and lifted face, penitent, receptive, waiting to be blessed.

For the time being doubts were forgotten, everything seemed straight and plain. Then, being Esmeralda, the wayward, the undisciplined, the mood of exultation faded, and depression held her once more. The heavenly help and guidance seemed far-off and unreal. She was seized with impetuous necessity to act at once, to act for herself. Pixie's proposals failed to satisfy her ardent desires. To wait weeks or months for the reward she craved was beyond endurance. She must contrive something big, something soon, something that would demonstrate to Geoffrey her anxiety to please him. She racked her brain to find a way.

Poor, impatient, undisciplined Esmeralda! How little she dreamed of the tragic consequences of that hour!

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

PIXIE TALKS ON LOVE.

The immediate cause of Geoffrey's displeasure having been in connection with the bazaar, it appeared to Joan that it was in that connection also that she must make an amend. He had complained that she had failed in interest and personal energy: by a supreme effort, then, she must demonstrate how his words had taken root.

It was the eleventh hour; any one but an impulsive Irish woman would have realised the futility of organising any fresh feature, and would have contented herself with doing well what was already planned, but such tame methods were not for the woman who had been Esmeralda O'Shaughnessy. She was accustomed to acting in haste; at home, at Knock, the most extensive entertainments had been organised at a few hours' notice, and how much easier it would be now with a staff of trained servants at her command and a purse full of money to buy the necessary accessories, instead of being obliged to manufacture all that was required out of ordinary household goods. Joan heaved a sigh of regret for the memory of those gay old days when a sheet and a pillow-case had provided a fancy costume which had captivated Geoffrey at a glance, then knitted her brows afresh in the effort to think out some scheme appropriate to the occasion.

The vicar's wife had lamented a lack of music which would afford variation from the prosaic business of buying and selling. At the time Joan had suspected a hint, and had resolutely turned a deaf ear. She hated singing to strangers, she hated singing in a building notably deficient in acoustic properties, she had not the faintest intention of victimising herself for the sake of a village throng. But now, with the new impetus driving her on, nothing seemed too hard or distasteful. The vicar's wife should have her music--music with such accessories as it had never entered her modest head to imagine, music which should be the feature _par excellence_ of the bazaar. Joan's was a quick, inventive brain; within half an hour she had mentally arranged her programme, made a list of the necessary accessories, and planned how they should be procured.

When the little party were again a.s.sembled for luncheon she was able to state her plans with an air of complete a.s.surance which left them breathless with astonishment. She had decided to provide two short concerts, one in the afternoon, one in the evening. She would sing two songs; Pixie should do the same. They would all join in appropriate part songs. By way of a climax the last number on the programme should be ill.u.s.trated by a _tableau vivant_. She proposed to write special words to a well-known air which, together with the tableau, should ill.u.s.trate the benefits which the bazaar was destined to provide for the villagers. The tableau should represent a scene in a cottage interior in which were grouped four figures--a child suffering from an accident, a distraught mother, a helpless father, and in the background, bending beneficently over the patient, the parish nurse.

Esmeralda looked around for approval, and met the stare of blank and doubtful faces.