Trixy

“ Even in the exorcised blue territory of a good old woman's eyes. "Oh, poor Trixy, poor Trixy!" moaned Marion, weeping. But it struck her that she was enjoying herself, and she sat up rigidly and searched her soul for the smuggled insincerity. "I must be lying," she said aloud with loathing. "I really cannot be pitying Trixy Cliffe because in my heart of hearts I care for no one but Richard. I would knead the flesh of anyone on earth and bake it in the oven if that were the only food I could give him. ”

“ And five minutes afterwards Trixy sees her on a rustic bench under a big elm tree, and Lord Delaval lying at her feet. Trixy watches them a moment. What a handsome couple they make. She sighs as she looks at them, and rather envies Zai the good looks of her lover. Then she turns away and murmurs in a tone of resignation:
“A handsome man always wants worshipping, while I like to be worshipped myself, and another thing, poor old Stubbs won’t ever make me jealous!” ”

“ My hands have no power to-day. No, General, not you. Trixy, come here! Open it, but don't take it out of my hands!'
Trixy obeyed, the tears rolling down her face. 'Why, your fingers are trembling too,' said Lady Elton. 'Thank you, dear. Now read it for me. My eyes are dim.' Trixy passed her eyes over the paper and broke into a joyful cry. 'Well! well!' said her mother impatiently. 'Read it, every word!'
'My dear Lady Elton,' began the girl, her voice shaking, 'I am sending my faithful Subdul to tell you and the General that we have found your Grace. ”

“ Trix exclaimed. The rest stood silent. There is a beauty so intense as to be beyond words of praise—so sweet, so solemn, as to hush the very beating of our hearts. It was such beauty as this they looked upon now.
They stood on the velvety sward—Sir Victor with Trixy on his arm, Charley and Edith side by side. A glowing mass of soft, scarlet drapery wrapped Miss Darrell, a coquettish hat, with a long, black ostrich plume, set off her Spanish face and eyes. They had dined—and when is moonlight half so poetical as after an excellent dinner? ”

“ Yes, Zai. It really quite escaped me that to-night Trixy makes her entrée into Society as an affianced one. Poor Trixy! And yet she is no object for pity, since Stubbs can supply her with all the gew-gaws she loves. Trixy always puts me in mind of that infant-mind that is pleased with a rattle—tickled with a straw. There is a charming youthfulness in her tastes, and a curious indifference in the manner by which she can satisfy them, that always puzzles me. ”

“ She now stood before Trixy making foolish faces.
“Ugh!” she exclaimed, brushing her hands to shed the imagined pollution, “now it’s all over. And we’ve lost trace of the Pirate’s Daughter.”
“There’s no telling,” presaged Trixy. “She may remember you in her will.”
“And again she may not. Well, may all our ill health go with it, as dear old Jane would say. Trixy, when do we go out to see our anxious friends?” (This meant the home folks.)
“I dunno. But let’s stick it out for a while and then, when we do take a little trip to Sandford, we won’t feel like a couple of hookey kids. ”

“ It was useless for Lady Elton to argue that health and sickness are not in our own hands, or to point out that Grace was making every possible effort; Trixy would still insist: 'If there is nothing really wrong, she ought to begin to be more like other people. If there is, she should see a doctor. I could never give up without a fight,' said Trixy, setting her teeth together. ”

“ Trixy's ready sympathies were instantly enlisted by that, to her mind, pathetic statement. She gave Mr. Gordon a fastidious look-you-over stare, and, seeing that he was pleasant to look upon, put her round, dimpled arms about his neck and gave him a bear-like hug and a resounding kiss.
"Is it true that you really have no little girl?" she asked him, bending back her pretty head to look into his face with eyes that pierced his heart with their likeness to Beatrix—Beatrix, his little girl whom he had put away from his heart, hated and unforgiven, because she had disobeyed him. ”

“ Good gracious, Trixy, this is awful!"
"You know what I mean," pursued Trix loftily. "You got him in love with you. Then, all the way to Killarney you flirted with Charley—poor Charley—and made him jealous, and jealousy finished him. You're a very clever girl, Edith, and I wish you a great deal of joy."
"Thank you; you say it as if you did. I don't take the trouble to deny your charges; they're not worth it—they are false, and you know them to be so. I never sought out Sir Victor Catheron, either in New York, on board ship, or elsewhere. ”

“ As in a dream Trixy saw it all—her gentle mother and Mildred, who was too timid to ride, waiting for them, and the guests who would drop in—the gallant young colonel of General Elton's favourite regiment, who had paid with his life for his reckless confidence in his men, and the judge of the High Court, with his delightful inimitable stories of Hindu and Eurasian pleaders: he had gone too, dying at his post like a gallant gentleman: and his daughter, pretty Ellice Meredith, whom they all loved, although she could not do much more than quote 'papa' ”

“ I’m not going to tell you anything about Trixy’s shortcomings now, and I hope I shall not have anything to tell you later.{65} Never mind about Trixy, darling. Think about your husband. Will you miss him? I shall be away three or four days, I am afraid, for I have a lot of business to do. I have been living in Dreamland here so long that I have neglected everything—but you!”
“Going to London for three or four days, Delaval?” she asks, with positive tears in her eyes. “Oh! I am so sorry.”
“Nonsense, Zai. We can’t always be tied together, or we may get tired of one another, you know!” ”

“ I have been living under canvas the last month, and a delightful life it is.'
'I should love it,' breathed Trixy.
'But you will come to us now, of course?' said Lady Elton. 'Now, do. We are a household of women. The General is out inspecting.'
'Tom likes women far better than men,' said Trixy.
'Can't you be quiet, scatter-brain?' said Maud, who had been waiting impatiently for the opportunity of putting in a word. 'Mr. Gregory' (turning her dark eyes upon Tom) , 'I hope you will come. It will seem like old times.'
'When we sang and played together long, long ago,' piped Trixy. ”

“ She had more power over her mother than Trixy, and between her and the doctor Lady Elton was persuaded to take a composing draught and to lie down. Trixy in the meantime drew her friend Bertie aside. 'Something must be done,' she said, 'or my poor mother will go mad. Can't you help us?'
'God knows,' he answered earnestly, 'that I would if I could. I asked to be allowed to take out cavalry and scour the country. I feel certain that I should have brought back news at least. But I am forbidden. Lives, they say, are too precious to be wasted in profitless enterprises. ”

“ The girl leans forward and strains her eyes, but can make out nothing in the darkness save that long line of wall and waving trees. This is to be Trixy's home, she thinks—happy Trixy! Half an hour more of rapid driving, and they are at Powyss Place, and their journey is at an end.
They emerge from the chill darkness of dawning day into a blaze of light—into a vast and stately entrance-hall. A long file of servants are drawn up to receive them. And "Welcome to Powyss Place," Lady Helena says with kind courtesy "I can only wish your visit may be as pleasant to you as you made mine in New York." ”

“ Oh, the girls!' looking round affectionately. 'But they are always hungry. River air and strong exercise, I suppose. Trixy, dearest, father would like to get rid of his coat and see his letters. Call Yaseen Khan.'
Trixy, who was afraid to leave the room lest interesting news should be given in her absence, went to the door and called out, and in the next instant an Indian servant, old, but handsome still, and dressed in gay garments of white and red and gold, a voluminous snow-white turban crowning his dark eyes and dusky face, appeared upon the threshold. ”

“ The big drawing-room in Belgrave Square is very dull. From outside comes the rush of vehicles, and the June sunshine tries to peer through the closed jalousies that fine ladies love. The clock ticks rather obtrusively, but Trixy likes to hear it, for it tells of the flight of time; a prospect she has at heart at this moment, and a short silence falls upon as ill-assorted a pair as ever a longing for the world’s vanities has brought together. ”

“ People might easily mistake one sister for the other.”
Spite is Trixy’s forte. Silky and saccharine, her tiny pattes de velours are always ready to creep out and scratch. Her mother understands her nature, and tries to check feline propensities; but Trixy, like many of her sex, is a born cat.
“Zai is more likely to compromise herself than you. She will establish a reputation for being queer, and damage her chance of securing an eligible parti.{93}”
“I wish there was no such word in English as eligible,” Gabrielle cries impetuously. ”

“ He's a pretty attentive host, I don't think," cried Trixy, with bitterness, "having a young lady laid up by the le—the ankle in his house, and never so much as calling to see if she is dead or alive!"
"My dearest Trix," said Edith, struggling with a laugh, "gentlemen don't call upon young ladies in their chambers at break of day, even though they have a sprained ankle. It isn't de rigeur."
"De rigger be blowed! It isn't my chamber; it's my private parlor; and aristocratic as we have got lately, I don't think half-past twelve is the break of day. ”

“ The poor young gentleman's a prey to unrequited affection. What are you shaking your head so vehemently at?"
"It isn't that," said Trix, looking solemn and mysterious, "it's worse!"
"Worse! Dear me. I didn't think anything could be worse. What is it then?"
"Murder!"
It was Trixy's turn to be sepulchral. Miss Darrell opened her big brown eyes. Miss Stuart's charnel-house tone was really blood curdling.
"My dearest Trix! Murder! Good gracious, you can't mean to say we've been dancing all night with a murderer? Who has he killed?"
"Edith, don't be an idiot! Did I say he killed any one? ”

“ Zai says, after a couple of months have elapsed since Trixy’s last hurried scrawl. “Did you hear of her, Delaval, yesterday in town?”
“Yes!” he answers rather gravely. Lax as he is in morals himself, he objects utterly to his wife’s ears being sullied with scandal. After all, though Zai’s innocence rather palls on him, he would not have it otherwise for all the world. But he has heard so much of Trixy from Percy Rayne that he feels it his bounden duty to do his best to keep the mire off the family he has married into. ”

“ Not that I much believe in broken hearts where men are concerned, either," pursued Trix, growing, cynical; "but this seems an exceptional case. He's awfully fond of you, Dithy; 'pon my word he is. I only hope Angus may go off in a dead faint the first time I'm sick and get better, as he did the other day. We haven't let him in much lately, for fear of agitating you, but I think," says Trixy, with twinkling eyes, "you could stand it now—couldn't you, Mrs. Stuart?"
She did not wait for a reply—she went out and hunted up Charley. ”

“ This was the great adventure related in “Gloria” and comparing the girl of such adventures with the one Trixy now confronted, it was not unreasonable indeed to find her rebelling, straining at the72 silken cords of Altmount’s restrictions. But Trixy’s life had been very different. The child of wealth is born to responsibilities, and they scarcely ever include escapes from flooded cellars, or the rescue of frightened children surrounding helplessly sick mothers. ”

“ Whenever one is trying to look on the bright side of things, you are sure to say something horrible,” Trixy replies, in a tone of martyrdom. “I think of Baby too; but I drive away the thought because it is my bounden duty. Mamma says I’m not to make myself ugly with crying and fretting, and, Zai, do you know, I don’t think there’s{201} much to grieve about Baby. She’s escaped marrying a—Mr. Stubbs!”
It strikes Zai again that Trixy’s ideas are a little out of the way, and wiping her tears, she takes up a book. ”

“ If Trixy’s beauty is in consequence marred just a little bit in the world by a soupçon of self-consciousness, it is not a matter of marvel. A Belgravian damsel can scarcely, with all the bonne volonté imaginable, personate Lalla Rookh, Idalian Aphrodite, Mary Anderson, the three Graces, a whole sisterhood of Muses, and herself to boot, without some one suffering in the transmogrification, and that some one is naturally—herself. ”

“ Just now Trixy, who has been reading an article on the Porte and Bulgaria, is{82} “doing” an odalisque, out of a Turkish harem. She is surrounded by a pile of satin cushions with a tender background of pale lilac and gold embroidery that helps to enhance the wonderful transparency of her skin, displays to greater advantage the yellow wealth of her hair, and forms an effective relief for the little Greek profile, chiselled like a cameo. ”

“ What is written is written. Sea-sickness is bad enough, without the green-eyed monster. Even Othello, if he had been crossing in a Cunard ship, would have put off the pillow performance until they reached the other side."
One especial afternoon, Edith fell asleep after luncheon, on a sofa, in her own and Trixy's cabin, and slept through dinner and dessert, and only woke with the lighting of the lamps. Trix lay, pale and wretched, gazing out of the porthole, at the glory of moonlight on the heaving sea, as one who sorrows without hope of consolation. ”