“To be as angry with people as you would like!” replied Bridgie unexpectedly. “You start by thinking that all the right is on your own side, and all the wrong on theirs, and that you’re a martyr and they are brutes, and that your case is proven and there’s not a word that could be said in their defence; and then of a sudden—” she lifted the letter in her hand—“you get this! And they have a side, and they are not brutes; and instead of being angry you have to be—you are forced into being—sorry instead! It does feel hard! I didn’t want to be sorry for Honor Ward...”
“I’m not sorry for her,” said Pixie softly, “I’m glad. She’s going to be happy. ... Bridgie, dear, what can I send her, for a wedding present?”
Chapter Twenty Eight.
Pixie finds her Happiness.
As soon as Pat had sufficiently recovered, he and Pixie travelled to Ireland to spend a few weeks in the old homestead, now blooming in fresh beauty under the management of Jack O’Shaughnessy and Sylvia his wife. The great hall which had been of old so bare and desolate was now embellished with Turkey carpets and tapestried walls: so far as the eye could reach there was not one shabby, nor broken, nor patched-up article; in sight; the damp and fusty odour which had filled the great drawing-room, and which for years had been associated with State apartments in Pixie’s youthful mind, was a thing of the past. Even in the chilliest weather the room remained warm, for electric radiators, cunningly hidden from sight, dispelled the damp, and were kept turned on night and day, “whether they were needed, or whether they were not,” to the delight and admiration of the Irish staff. For pure extravagance, for pure pagan delight in extravagance, the Irishman and woman are hard to beat. The very warmth and generosity of their nature makes it abhorrent to them to stint in any direction, which is one reason, out of many, for the prevailing poverty of the land.
Jack and Sylvia made delightful hosts, and it was a very happy and a very merry quartette which passed those spring days together in Knock Castle. They were complete in themselves, and any suggestion of “a party” was instantly vetoed by the visitors, who announced their desire to remain “just as we are.”
Sylvia and Pixie rode or drove about the country, pulling up every half mile or so to chat with cottagers, who were all eager to see Miss Pixie, to invoke blessings on her head, and—begging her honour’s pardon!—to sigh a sigh for the memory of the times that were no more.
On frequent occasions this same curious, and to English-bred Sylvia, inexplicable regret for the days of old was manifested by the dwellers on the country-side. “What did they want?” she asked herself impatiently. “What could they wish for that had not already been done?” Repaired cottages, improved sanitation, higher wages, perquisites without number—since the new reign all these things had been bestowed upon these ungratefuls, and still they dared to regret the past!