II. The Little Nursery Governess
As I enter the club smoking-room you are to conceive David vanishinginto nothingness, and that it is any day six years ago at two in theafternoon. I ring for coffee, cigarette, and cherry brandy, and take mychair by the window, just as the absurd little nursery governess comestripping into the street. I always feel that I have rung for her.
While I am lifting the coffee-pot cautiously lest the lid fall into thecup, she is crossing to the post-office; as I select the one suitablelump of sugar she is taking six last looks at the letter; with the aidof William I light my cigarette, and now she is re-reading the deliciousaddress. I lie back in my chair, and by this time she has dropped theletter down the slit. I toy with my liqueur, and she is listening tohear whether the postal authorities have come for her letter. I scowl ata fellow-member who has had the impudence to enter the smoking-room, andher two little charges are pulling her away from the post-office. WhenI look out at the window again she is gone, but I shall ring for herto-morrow at two sharp.
She must have passed the window many times before I noticed her. I knownot where she lives, though I suppose it to be hard by. She is takingthe little boy and girl, who bully her, to the St. James's Park, astheir hoops tell me, and she ought to look crushed and faded. No doubther mistress overworks her. It must enrage the other servants to see herdeporting herself as if she were quite the lady.
I noticed that she had sometimes other letters to post, but thatthe posting of the one only was a process. They shot down the slit,plebeians all, but it followed pompously like royalty. I have even seenher blow a kiss after it.
Then there was her ring, of which she was as conscious as if it ratherthan she was what came gaily down the street. She felt it through herglove to make sure that it was still there. She took off the glove andraised the ring to her lips, though I doubt not it was the cheapesttrinket. She viewed it from afar by stretching out her hand; she stoopedto see how it looked near the ground; she considered its effect on theright of her and on the left of her and through one eye at a time. Evenwhen you saw that she had made up her mind to think hard of somethingelse, the little silly would take another look.
I give anyone three chances to guess why Mary was so happy.
No and no and no. The reason was simply this, that a lout of a young manloved her. And so, instead of crying because she was the merest nobody,she must, forsooth, sail jauntily down Pall Mall, very trim as to hertackle and ticketed with the insufferable air of an engaged woman. Atfirst her complacency disturbed me, but gradually it became part of mylife at two o'clock with the coffee, the cigarette, and the liqueur. Nowcomes the tragedy.
Thursday is her great day. She has from two to three every Thursday forher very own; just think of it: this girl, who is probably paid severalpounds a year, gets a whole hour to herself once a week. And what doesshe with it? Attend classes for making her a more accomplished person?Not she. This is what she does: sets sail for Pall Mall, wearing all herpretty things, including the blue feathers, and with such a sparkleof expectation on her face that I stir my coffee quite fiercely. Onordinary days she at least tries to look demure, but on a Thursday shehas had the assurance to use the glass door of the club as a mirror inwhich to see how she likes her engaging trifle of a figure to-day.
In the meantime a long-legged oaf is waiting for her outside thepost-office, where they meet every Thursday, a fellow who always wearsthe same suit of clothes, but has a face that must ever make him free ofthe company of gentlemen. He is one of your lean, clean Englishmen,who strip so well, and I fear me he is handsome; I say fear, for yourhandsome men have always annoyed me, and had I lived in the duellingdays I swear I would have called every one of them out. He seems to bequite unaware that he is a pretty fellow, but Lord, how obviously Maryknows it. I conclude that he belongs to the artistic classes, he isso easily elated and depressed; and because he carries his left thumbcuriously, as if it were feeling for the hole of a palette, I haveentered his name among the painters. I find pleasure in deciding thatthey are shocking bad pictures, for obviously no one buys them. I feelsure Mary says they are splendid, she is that sort of woman. Hence therapture with which he greets her. Her first effect upon him is to makehim shout with laughter. He laughs suddenly haw from an eager exultingface, then haw again, and then, when you are thanking heaven that it isat last over, comes a final haw, louder than the others. I take them tobe roars of joy because Mary is his, and they have a ring of youthabout them that is hard to bear. I could forgive him everything save hisyouth, but it is so aggressive that I have sometimes to order Williamtestily to close the window.
How much more deceitful than her lover is the little nursery governess.The moment she comes into sight she looks at the post-office and seeshim. Then she looks straight before her, and now she is observed, and herushes across to her in a glory, and she starts--positively starts--asif he had taken her by surprise. Observe her hand rising suddenly to herwicked little heart. This is the moment when I stir my coffee violently.He gazes down at her in such rapture that he is in everybody's way, andas she takes his arm she gives it a little squeeze, and then away theystrut, Mary doing nine-tenths of the talking. I fall to wondering whatthey will look like when they grow up.
What a ludicrous difference do these two nobodies make to each other.You can see that they are to be married when he has twopence.
Thus I have not an atom of sympathy with this girl, to whom London isfamous only as the residence of a young man who mistakes her for someoneelse, but her happiness had become part of my repast at two P.M., andwhen one day she walked down Pall Mall without gradually posting aletter I was most indignant. It was as if William had disobeyed orders.Her two charges were as surprised as I, and pointed questioningly tothe slit, at which she shook her head. She put her finger to her eyes,exactly like a sad baby, and so passed from the street.
Next day the same thing happened, and I was so furious that I bitthrough my cigarette. Thursday came, when I prayed that there mightbe an end of this annoyance, but no, neither of them appeared on thatacquainted ground. Had they changed their post-office? No, for her eyeswere red every day, and heavy was her foolish little heart. Love had putout his lights, and the little nursery governess walked in darkness.
I felt I could complain to the committee.
Oh, you selfish young zany of a man, after all you have said to her,won't you make it up and let me return to my coffee? Not he.
Little nursery governess, I appeal to you. Annoying girl, be joyous asof old during the five minutes of the day when you are anything to me,and for the rest of the time, so far as I am concerned, you may be aswretched as you list. Show some courage. I assure you he must be a verybad painter; only the other day I saw him looking longingly into thewindow of a cheap Italian restaurant, and in the end he had to crushdown his aspirations with two penny scones.
You can do better than that. Come, Mary.
All in vain. She wants to be loved; can't do without love from morningtill night; never knew how little a woman needs till she lost thatlittle. They are all like this.
Zounds, madam, if you are resolved to be a drooping little figure tillyou die, you might at least do it in another street.
Not only does she maliciously depress me by walking past on ordinarydays, but I have discovered that every Thursday from two to three shestands afar off, gazing hopelessly at the romantic post-office where sheand he shall meet no more. In these windy days she is like a homelessleaf blown about by passers-by.
There is nothing I can do except thunder at William.
At last she accomplished her unworthy ambition. It was a wet Thursday,and from the window where I was writing letters I saw the forlorn soultaking up her position at the top of the street: in a blast of fury Irose with the one letter I had completed, meaning to write the others inmy chambers. She had driven me from the club.
I had turned out of Pall Mall into a side street, when whom should Istrike against but her false swain! It was my fault,
but I hit out athim savagely, as I always do when I run into anyone in the street. ThenI looked at him. He was hollow-eyed; he was muddy; there was not a hawleft in him. I never saw a more abject young man; he had not even thespirit to resent the testy stab I had given him with my umbrella. Butthis is the important thing: he was glaring wistfully at the post-officeand thus in a twink I saw that he still adored my little governess.Whatever had been their quarrel he was as anxious to make it up as she,and perhaps he had been here every Thursday while she was round thecorner in Pall Mall, each watching the post-office for an apparition.But from where they hovered neither could see the other.
I think what I did was quite clever. I dropped my letter unseen at hisfeet, and sauntered back to the club. Of course, a gentleman who findsa letter on the pavement feels bound to post it, and I presumed that hewould naturally go to the nearest office.
With my hat on I strolled to the smoking-room window, and was just intime to see him posting my letter across the way. Then I looked forthe little nursery governess. I saw her as woe-begone as ever; then,suddenly--oh, you poor little soul, and has it really been as bad asthat!
She was crying outright, and he was holding both her hands. It was adisgraceful exhibition. The young painter would evidently explode if hecould not make use of his arms. She must die if she could not lay herhead upon his breast. I must admit that he rose to the occasion; hehailed a hansom.
"William," said I gaily, "coffee, cigarette, and cherry brandy."
As I sat there watching that old play David plucked my sleeve to askwhat I was looking at so deedily; and when I told him he ran eagerly tothe window, but he reached it just too late to see the lady who was tobecome his mother. What I told him of her doings, however, interestedhim greatly; and he intimated rather shyly that he was acquainted withthe man who said, "Haw-haw-haw." On the other hand, he irritated me bybetraying an idiotic interest in the two children, whom he seemed toregard as the hero and heroine of the story. What were their names? Howold were they? Had they both hoops? Were they iron hoops, or just woodenhoops? Who gave them their hoops?
"You don't seem to understand, my boy," I said tartly, "that had I notdropped that letter, there would never have been a little boy calledDavid A----." But instead of being appalled by this he asked, sparkling,whether I meant that he would still be a bird flying about in theKensington Gardens.
David knows that all children in our part of London were once birds inthe Kensington Gardens; and that the reason there are bars on nurserywindows and a tall fender by the fire is because very little peoplesometimes forget that they have no longer wings, and try to fly awaythrough the window or up the chimney.
Children in the bird stage are difficult to catch. David knows that manypeople have none, and his delight on a summer afternoon is to go with meto some spot in the Gardens where these unfortunates may be seen tryingto catch one with small pieces of cake.
That the birds know what would happen if they were caught, and are evena little undecided about which is the better life, is obvious to everystudent of them. Thus, if you leave your empty perambulator under thetrees and watch from a distance, you will see the birds boarding it andhopping about from pillow to blanket in a twitter of excitement; theyare trying to find out how babyhood would suit them.
Quite the prettiest sight in the Gardens is when the babies stray fromthe tree where the nurse is sitting and are seen feeding the birds, nota grownup near them. It is first a bit to me and then a bit to you,and all the time such a jabbering and laughing from both sides of therailing. They are comparing notes and inquiring for old friends, and soon; but what they say I cannot determine, for when I approach they allfly away.
The first time I ever saw David was on the sward behind the Baby's Walk.He was a missel-thrush, attracted thither that hot day by a hose whichlay on the ground sending forth a gay trickle of water, and David was onhis back in the water, kicking up his legs. He used to enjoy being toldof this, having forgotten all about it, and gradually it all came backto him, with a number of other incidents that had escaped my memory,though I remember that he was eventually caught by the leg with a longstring and a cunning arrangement of twigs near the Round Pond. He nevertires of this story, but I notice that it is now he who tells it to merather than I to him, and when we come to the string he rubs his littleleg as if it still smarted.
So when David saw his chance of being a missel-thrush again he calledout to me quickly: "Don't drop the letter!" and there were tree-tops inhis eyes.
"Think of your mother," I said severely.
He said he would often fly in to see her. The first thing he would dowould be to hug her. No, he would alight on the water-jug first, andhave a drink.
"Tell her, father," he said with horrid heartlessness, "always to haveplenty of water in it, 'cos if I had to lean down too far I might fallin and be drownded."
"Am I not to drop the letter, David? Think of your poor mother withouther boy!"
It affected him, but he bore up. When she was asleep, he said, he wouldhop on to the frilly things of her night-gown and peck at her mouth.
"And then she would wake up, David, and find that she had only a birdinstead of a boy."
This shock to Mary was more than he could endure. "You can drop it,"he said with a sigh. So I dropped the letter, as I think I have alreadymentioned; and that is how it all began.