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 waiting for her outside the
post-office, where they meet every Thursday, a fellow who always wears
the same suit of clothes, but has a face that must ever make him free of
the 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 your
handsome men have always annoyed me, and had I lived in the duelling
days I swear I would have called every one of them out. He seems to be
quite unaware that he is a pretty fellow, but Lord, how obviously Mary
knows it. I conclude that he belongs to the artistic classes, he is
so easily elated and depressed; and because he carries his left thumb
curiously, as if it were feeling for the hole of a palette, I have
entered his name among the painters. I find pleasure in deciding that
they are shocking bad pictures, for obviously no one buys them. I feel
sure Mary says they are splendid, she is that sort of woman. Hence the
rapture with which he greets her. Her first effect upon him is to make
him shout with laughter. He laughs suddenly haw from an eager exulting
face, then haw again, and then, when you are thanking heaven that it is
at last over, comes a final haw, louder than the others. I take them to
be roars of joy because Mary is his, and they have a ring of youth
about them that is hard to bear. I could forgive him everything save his
youth, but it is so aggressive that I have sometimes to order William
testily 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 sees
him. Then she looks straight before her, and now she is observed, and he
rushes across to her in a glory, and she starts--positively starts--as
if he had taken her by surprise. Observe her hand rising suddenly to her
wicked 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, and
as she takes his arm she gives it a little squeeze, and then away they
strut, Mary doing nine-tenths of the talking. I fall to wondering what
they 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 is
famous only as the residence of a young man who mistakes her for someone
else, but her happiness had become part of my repast at two P.M., and
when one day she walked down Pall Mall without gradually posting a
letter I was most indignant. It was as if William had disobeyed orders.
Her two charges were as surprised as I, and pointed questioningly to
the 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 bit
through my cigarette. Thursday came, when I prayed that there might
be an end of this annoyance, but no, neither of them appeared on that
acquainted ground. Had they changed their post-office? No, for her eyes
were red every day, and heavy was her foolish little heart. Love had put
out his lights, and the little nursery governess walked in darkness.