“She is not very like any of you!” Sylvia said lamely. She wanted to be pleasant and appreciative, but could not think what on earth to say next. “It must be—er—very nice to have a little sister. She is in Paris, you say. Will she be away long?”
“She is coming home for good in January. Geoffrey and Esmeralda are going over to bring her back, and she will go on with finishing lessons at home. We can’t do without each other any longer. I feel quite sore with wanting her sometimes, and she is home-sick too. I had a letter from her this morning. Would you like me to read it to you to show you what she is like?”
“Please do!” said Sylvia politely, but in reality she was rather bored by the prospect.
It was one of Aunt Margaret’s peculiarities that she insisted upon reading aloud the letters which she received from old-lady friends, and the incredible dulness of the epistles made them a trial to the patience of her lively young niece. She stifled a yawn as Bridgie straightened the sheets of foreign note-paper, and cleared her throat with prospective enjoyment.
“‘Dearest, Darling People, especially Bridgie,—I was gladder than ever to get your letters this week, because it’s been raining and dull, and the mud looked so home-like that it depressed my spirits. Thérèse has gone out for the day, so Père and I are alone. He wears white socks and a velvet jacket, and sleeps all the time. He told me one day that he used to be very active when he was young, and that was why he liked to rest now. “All the week I do nozzing, and on Sundays I repose me!” I teach him English, but he doesn’t like to talk it much, because it’s so difficult to be clever in a foreign language.
“‘My dear, I never suffered more than when I first came here, and Thérèse telling everyone how amusing I was, and myself sitting as dumb as a mummy! I can talk quite beautifully now, and wriggle about like a native. I’ll teach you how to shrug your shoulders, and you hold up your dress quite differently in France, and it’s fashionable to be fat. Last night Thérèse let me have two girls for souper. They are called Marie and Julie, and wear plaid dresses, and combs in their hair. I like them frightfully, but they are very rude sometimes, saying France is better than England, and that we have big teeth and ugly boots. Then they got angry because I laughed, and said England always thought she was right, but that everyone else knew she was a cheat and a bully, and that she was the most disliked nation on earth! “And you are the politest,” says I, quite composed, and at that they got red in the face, for I was all alone, and there were two of them in their own country.
“‘When they went away they kissed me, and said they were sorry, and that my teeth weren’t big a bit, and I said France was an elegant country, but you couldn’t wear high heels in Ireland, or you’d never be free of the bog. It’s a pity French people don’t like us, and I don’t think they always mean exactly what they say, but they make beautiful things to eat.
“‘Thérèse gives me cooking lessons out of school hours, and I’ve lost my taste for coffee with grounds in it, like we had at Knock. Everything is as clean as if it were quite new, and there is such a different smell in the houses—a lonely smell! It makes me long for home and you, and a peat fire, and all the people in the streets speaking English, and never as much as thinking of the tenses of verbs.
“‘You are quite sure I may come home in January, aren’t you, Bridgie? You are not saying it just to pacify me? I’ll tell you a secret! Once I thought of running away and coming back to you in London, because I couldn’t bear myself any longer. I said to Thérèse, just in a careless kind of way, as if I had only thought of it that moment: “Supposing now that a young girl was in Paris, and wanting to run away to her friends in England, how would she set about getting there?”
“‘And she never suspected a bit, for she said:—
“‘“Supposing that she lived in this suburb, it would be quite easy to manage. She should rest tranquil until the family were in bed, and no one in the streets but thieves and robbers, and then slip out of the house and walk to the station. There would be no voiture, but perhaps the thieves may not see her, and all of them do not care about kidnapping children. When she reaches the station, she will take her ticket for England—it costs but a few sovereigns—and she has only to change twice, and get through the custom-house. If all went well, she would be in London next morning, while the poor friends in Paris might cry as much as they liked—they could not bring her back.”
“‘She seemed to think it quite easy, but I was afraid of the thieves, and had only three francs in my purse; and that afternoon they were both awfully kind to me, and Père called me chèrie, and Thérèse took me to the circus. The clown is called August, but the principal one is English, because they are the best. He made English jokes, and I laughed as loudly as I could, to show that I understood. The other people smiled with their lips, don’t you know—the way people do when they don’t understand, but think it is grand to pretend. I feel so stylish being English in France. When I come home to London, I’ll be French!
“‘Esmeralda sent me a book and some money for Christmas presents. Tell Jack to write me a funny letter with illustrations. How is the poor girl with the bark on the road? We haven’t a single animal in the house, not even a cat. I miss them frightfully. Do you remember when my ferret died, and I filled up to cry, and the Major bought me a white rat for consolation? Health, and tons of love, darling, from your own Pixie.’”
Sylvia chuckled softly from the bed.
“It’s not a scrap like a letter,” she said. “It is just like somebody talking. What a jolly little soul! She seems very young, doesn’t she? Some girls of sixteen are quite young ladies.”
“Pixie will always be a child,” said Pixie’s sister fondly. “There is something simple and trustful about her which will keep her young all her life. She is so transparently honest, that it never occurs to her that anyone else can be different; and she is the kindest, most loving little creature that was ever created. Don’t you think she looks a darling in the photograph?”
It had come at last, the dreaded question, and Sylvia tried her best to combine truthfulness with politeness.
“She has very sweet eyes. It is difficult to judge when you have never seen a person. She—she isn’t exactly pretty, is she?”