The Little White Bird | Page 6

guide him with my umbrella.
The streets were not quite as they had been in the morning. For instance,
the bookshop at the corner was now selling fish. I dropped David a hint
of what was going on.

"It doesn't make me littler, does it?" he asked anxiously; and then, with
a terrible misgiving: "It won't make me too little, will it, father?" by
which he meant that he hoped it would not do for him altogether. He
slipped his hand nervously into mine, and I put it in my pocket.
You can't think how little David looked as we entered the portals of the
club.
II
The Little Nursery Governess
As I enter the club smoking-room you are to conceive David vanishing
into nothingness, and that it is any day six years ago at two in the
afternoon. I ring for coffee, cigarette, and cherry brandy, and take my
chair by the window, just as the absurd little nursery governess comes
tripping 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 the cup,
she is crossing to the post-office; as I select the one suitable lump of
sugar she is taking six last looks at the letter; with the aid of William I
light my cigarette, and now she is re-reading the delicious address. I lie
back in my chair, and by this time she has dropped the letter down the
slit. I toy with my liqueur, and she is listening to hear whether the
postal authorities have come for her letter. I scowl at a fellow-member
who has had the impudence to enter the smoking-room, and her two
little charges are pulling her away from the post-office. When I look
out at the window again she is gone, but I shall ring for her to-morrow
at two sharp.
She must have passed the window many times before I noticed her. I
know not where she lives, though I suppose it to be hard by. She is
taking the little boy and girl, who bully her, to the St. James's Park, as
their hoops tell me, and she ought to look crushed and faded. No doubt
her mistress overworks her. It must enrage the other servants to see her
deporting herself as if she were quite the lady.
I noticed that she had sometimes other letters to post, but that the

posting of the one only was a process. They shot down the slit,
plebeians all, but it followed pompously like royalty. I have even seen
her blow a kiss after it.
Then there was her ring, of which she was as conscious as if it rather
than she was what came gaily down the street. She felt it through her
glove to make sure that it was still there. She took off the glove and
raised the ring to her lips, though I doubt not it was the cheapest trinket.
She viewed it from afar by stretching out her hand; she stooped to see
how it looked near the ground; she considered its effect on the right of
her and on the left of her and through one eye at a time. Even when you
saw that she had made up her mind to think hard of something else, 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
man loved her. And so, instead of crying because she was the merest
nobody, she must, forsooth, sail jauntily down Pall Mall, very trim as to
her tackle and ticketed with the insufferable air of an engaged woman.
At first her complacency disturbed me, but gradually it became part of
my life at two o'clock with the coffee, the cigarette, and the liqueur.
Now comes the tragedy.
Thursday is her great day. She has from two to three every Thursday
for her very own; just think of it: this girl, who is probably paid several
pounds a year, gets a whole hour to herself once a week. And what
does she 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 her pretty things, including the blue feathers, and with such a
sparkle of expectation on her face that I stir my coffee quite fiercely.
On ordinary days she at least tries to look demure, but on a Thursday
she has had the assurance to use the glass door of the club as a mirror in
which to see how she likes her engaging trifle of a figure to-day.
In the meantime a long-legged oaf is