“I’ve had a blow,” said Jack, “a ghastly disappointment! This is the day when the firm announces the various arrangements for the year, increases in salary and so on. I quite understood that I should come in for a substantial rise, if not a junior partnership. It was talked about when I joined four years back, and as nothing was done last January I made a certainty of it coming off now. Instead of that, I get nothing—nothing! No advance at all upon the payment of the last two years. I had it out with the partners this afternoon, and they seemed to think I had done unusually well. They implied that it was a piece of pure imagination on my part to have expected to be taken into the firm.”
“But—I know nothing about business except what I have read—but is it not usual to have something written—a definite agreement which settles things without the possibility of argument? If you joined this firm with the idea of being made a partner, was not an agreement written down in black and white?”
Jack waved his hand in airy dissent.
“No, there was nothing definite, but we talked it over.—The old fellow certainly held out hopes for the future! I made so sure of a partnership that we took this house in the prospect of being able to pay for it out of my increased earnings. It’s too expensive as it is for people brought up as we have been. I’m the most practical of the bundle, and with care and attention can make half a crown go almost as far as an Englishman’s shilling; but Bridgie, bless her! wears herself out saving pennies, and throws away pounds with the best. In my father’s time there was never any money to trouble about, so she got into the way of ordering things without thinking what they would cost, and it’s a difficult plan to forsake. She’s done her best, poor creature! I wouldn’t blame her for the world.”
“And—and will you have to leave the house?” Sylvia’s heart sank drearily at the prospect. What if the O’Shaughnessys flitted away to a suburb at the opposite end of the city, and Number Three, Rutland Road was deserted once more, or tenanted by an ordinary, commonplace family, such as inhabited every other villa in the neighbourhood! After the sweet friendship of Bridgie, the fascinations of Jack, the audacities of the two boys, the witcheries of Pixie, and last but not least, the incursions of Esmeralda, exasperating, but to the last degree romantic and beautiful, Sylvia felt a shudder of distaste at the thought of a stout mamma and papa, one baby in a perambulator, another in a mail-cart, and a graduated line of school-boys and girls sallying forth daily to their appointed tasks. “Oh, I’m so sorry you will have to leave!” she sighed, and Jack smiled at her in grateful acknowledgment of her regret.
“I’m glad you are sorry, but I don’t intend to leave. We have been here only four months, and I can’t face another removal for—many reasons! We will have to squeeze along somehow until things look up. A crop of bills have come in during the last few days to make matters worse, and I will have to talk things over with Bridgie to-night. I hate to worry her, but there must be some system, or we shall find ourselves in the workhouse some fine day. And now there is the child to think of. She will be an extra expense!”
Sylvia glanced quickly across the room at the figure in the depths of the arm-chair. She sat motionless, her head bent over her book, but Pixie was one of those intensely alive little creatures who seem to infect their very surroundings with vitality. It seemed to Sylvia that the pages fluttered in agitated fashion, the bow of ribbon holding back her hair seemed of a sudden to stand out at attention, the knotted ends looked like two alert, curious ears at the back of her head.
How much had Pixie heard?