More about Pixie | Page 3

so much that
is good and pleasant, and if any qualms arose as to the cheerfulness of
the home in which he was leaving her, he consoled himself by the
reflection that he would be able to make up for temporary deprivations
in the years to come.
Mr Trevor sailed off to the East, and Sylvia took up her abode at
Number 6 Rutland Road, in an unfashionable suburb in the north of
London, and settled down to being a "good industrious girl" with what
grace she might. She did not understand Aunt Margaret, and Aunt
Margaret felt it a decided trial to have her sleepy home invaded by a
restless young creature, who was never so happy as when she was
singing at the pitch of her voice, rushing up and down stairs, and
playing silly schoolboy tricks; but fate had ordained that they were to
live together, and they had jogged along more or less peacefully until
that unlucky day when the girl had sickened for her dangerous illness.

Then, indeed, Aunt Margaret realised that she had grown to love her
wayward charge, and all the manifold demands and inconveniences of
illness were swallowed up in anxiety during the first anxious weeks.
She allowed not only one, but two of "those dreadful nurses" to take
possession of her spare rooms, submitted meekly to their orders, and
saw her domestic rules and regulations put aside without a murmur of
protest; but when the crisis was safely passed, and recovery became
only a matter of time, the old fussy nature reasserted itself, and her eyes
were open to behold the dire results of a long illness.
This bright October morning she came stooping into Sylvia's bedroom,
a slight woman with a narrow bent back, brown hair smoothed neatly
down on each side of a withered, dried-up face, with a patch of red on
the cheek bones, and sunken brown eyes roving restlessly to right and
left. She wore a black stuff dress, a satin apron with pockets and an
edging of jet, and knitted mittens over her wrists--a typical old lady of
the ancient type. Yet as she stood beside the bed there was a curious
likeness to be observed between her face and the one on the pillow; and
Sylvia recognised as much, and felt a thrill of dismay at the thought
that some day she, too, would be frail and bent, and wear a cap and
mittens, and have rheumatic joints, and attacks of bronchitis if by
chance she was so imprudent as to go out without putting on goloshes,
a woollen "crossover," and a big silk muffler beneath her mantle. To
one- and-twenty it seemed an appalling prospect, and one to be shunted
into the background with all possible speed.
"Well, my love, and how are you this morning? Much better, I hear. A
good drop in temperature," said Aunt Margaret, pecking her niece's
cheek with her lips, and answering her own question without waiting
for a reply, as her custom was. "Nurse tells me that you will soon be up
again, and I'm sure it is time. This room needs a regular spring cleaning,
and as for the new drugget on the landing--three new spots of milk this
morning, to say nothing of what has gone before! If I had known you
were going to be ill I would have made the old one last another year,
for it is sheer waste of money buying new things to have them ruined in
six months. The last one was down thirteen years, and looked very little
worse than this does now!"

"Father will buy you another. You must put it down as one of the
expenses. He won't mind so long as I get better," said the invalid
wearily; whereupon Aunt Margaret drew herself up with an air of
wounded pride.
"Indeed, my dear, your poor father will have enough to do to pay all the
doctors and nurses without being called upon for extras. I am willing to
bear my own share, though I will say my stair-carpets have had as
much wear and tear in the last two months as in half a dozen years
before, and that Nurse Ellen is a most careless creature, she leaves
everything in a muddle! If you get up, my dear, you must wear my
wadded jacket. I had a young friend--she was the cousin of Sarah
Wedderburn, who lived in Stanhope Terrace, and married young
Johnson of Sunderland.--You have heard me speak of the Johnsons,
who were at school with your Aunt Emma?"
Sylvia blinked her eyelids in a non-committal manner which might be
taken either for assent or denial. She was afraid to confess ignorance of
the Johnson family, lest Aunt Margaret's love of biography should take
a further