Chapter XXIII The Ivory Fan
“In my opinion,” quoth Miss Bird, looking up from her embroidery (she was making Dora a table-centre for a wedding present), “girls have too many dresses. When I was your age, my dear, I had two dresses—one for everyday and the other for Sundays. They were both black. In those days girls were taught to be contented with a few clothes, and to make them last a very long time!”
“How long did you have to make your best dress last?” asked Dora.
“Five years,” said Miss Bird.
“Just fancy!” cried Dora. “Why, it must have been green by that time.”
“It was green,” acknowledged Miss Bird, with a hard smile.
“And you still wore it?”
“Of course I wore it! I had no other.”
“But you must have hated wearing it!”
“I did hate wearing it,” said Miss Bird; “I loathed the sight of it. I could have torn it to pieces. But it was my only good dress, and so I kept it in constant repair, and cleaned it, and brushed it, and put it away very carefully every Sunday night or after a party. Ah! young girls had a very different time of it forty years ago, I can tell you, my dear!”
Dora gazed at Miss Bird in some surprise. The severe-looking maiden lady seldom spoke so feelingly. Yet, of late, she had talked to Dora a good deal. Dora had given up her situation at the post-office—by Harold Jefferson’s express desire—and so was at home all day now. Consequently, she and Miss Bird saw much of each other, and a kind of little friendliness had grown up between them which had never existed previously. In fact, before this cold, wet January set in, Miss Bird had seemed to entertain a feeling of dislike for Dora.
“No,” recommended Miss Bird, who probably felt that she had shown a little too much of her human side, “in those days girls didn’t gad about on bicycles and scamper after footballs and cricket balls like so many boys. Nor did they go to the theatre alone with young men. No, in my young days I wasn’t even allowed to look out of the window at people passing along the pavement. I was fined a shilling if I did. You may not believe that, but it’s true! I was brought up very strictly by an aunt in a country village, and I don’t suppose anybody on this earth—except a convict in prison, who deserves all he gets, the rascal!—ever passed such a monotonous existence as I did.”
“How long did you live with your aunt?” asked Dora, rather timidly.
“Until I was thirty,” replied Miss Bird, “and then she died and left me just enough to live on. And I’ve been living on that just enough ever since.”
Miss Bird’s customary conversation consisted of harsh comments on current events or severe criticisms of internal affairs at No. 9. She had never been so communicative regarding her past life before.
Dora employed herself with her sewing for a time, and then observed: “I am afraid you cannot have been very happy as a girl, Miss Bird. Did—did you ever see any young men?”
Miss Bird uttered a grating, unmusical laugh. “I saw the backs of a few in church.”
“Was that all?”
“And occasionally talked to a curate at a croquet party.”
“How dreadful!” cried Dora.
“My aunt,”, explained Miss Bird, “hated men! She was jilted as a girl, and detested men ever afterwards. So I never spoke to any men—except curates. No man ever said a tender word to me—no man ever lent me a book or wrote a poem to me, or presented me with a bunch of flowers. That was my girlhood—and now, perhaps, you won’t be so surprised at my being a cross old woman!”
Dora, with a sweet impulse, dropped her sewing, and, putting her arms round the elderly lady’s neck, kissed her on the cheek.
“I am so sorry you were unhappy,” she said, gently.
The grimness faded out of Miss Bird’s face. She laid down her embroidery and took Dora’s hand.
“My dear,” she said, “that is all over and gone. Still, I shall not forget what you said. Some day you may want a friend—a woman—and then you mustn’t be afraid to come to me. My bark, child, is worse than my bite.... There! now we mustn’t be sentimental any longer, but get on with our work.”
Dora therefore relapsed once more into her seat by Miss Bird’s side and resumed her sewing, and for some time the silence was unbroken save by the sound of stitching.
“When is the wedding, child?” asked Miss Bird, suddenly.
“On the 26th,” said Dora, bending rather more closely over her work.
Miss Bird submitted the girl’s profile to a severe scrutiny. “Personally,” she said at length, “I don’t like the man.”
“Who?” said Dora.
“Jefferson.”
“But,” Dora hastened to retort, “you were in favour of my being engaged to him.”
“I know more of him now,” said the old maid, “and in my opinion that young doctor’s worth ten of him.”
Dora started, and her needle went into her finger.
“You pricked yourself then,” jeered Miss Bird.
Dora said nothing.
“Because I mentioned him!”
“What do you mean, Miss Bird?” demanded Dora, with cheeks afire.
Before Miss Bird could reply, however, the door opened and Mr Cleave appeared.
“I hope—er—I hope I am not interrupting you,” said the newcomer, with a slight cough; “that is to say, you may be discussing some matter of dress—ahem!—trust I am not de trop?”
“That’s exactly what you are!” roared Miss Bird.
“Oh—er—ahem!—in that case I will retire——”
“If you please!” replied Miss Bird, sternly.
“Oh, Mr Cleave, of course you may come in!” cried Dora, rising to her feet. “In fact, I was just going out——”
“That’s a fib!” said Miss Bird.
But Dora had flown. “Well, come in, come in,” said Miss Bird; “come in and read your wretched little paper——”
“Pardon?” inquired Cleave.
“Your paper!” howled Miss Bird; “your wretched little rag of a paper that squeals like a pig when anybody has a glass of beer.”
“I—er—think—I—er—I think I will not come in just now,” bleated Cleave, retiring precipitately.
“Bah!” muttered Miss Bird, “everything’s upside down. That man ought to be in skirts, and Mortimer ought to be shot for not eloping with Dora!”
And so the preparations for the wedding continued apace. Of course, economy had to be studied, wherefore Mrs Maybury hired an industrious seamstress to come and sew every day; and sew the seamstress did, till her fingers ached. Miss Bird sat by and threw out hints; H. R. snapped at Miss Bird, and Mrs Maybury snapped at H. R. Finally, the two latter would snap at Dora, who, after firing up at them, would retire to her bedroom, presently descending softly to sit in the drawing-room, the others being in possession of the dining-room.
So passed this damp January time, and the wedding day drew nearer and nearer. Occasionally Mr Jefferson appeared, very dapper and smiling, in evening dress, and carried Dora off to a theatre. But after these excursions, Dora would be very silent, and slip off to her bedroom at the first possible moment.
Mr Maybury and Dora had a quiet evening together at the theatre. They went to see a comedy—a piece in which laughter and tears trod upon one another’s heels—a good little piece whose like is not often seen on London boards. They sat hand-in-hand, as in the old days, this father and daughter, and when it was all over, and they came out into the street, their faces were sad. For they were to part soon—so soon.
One day Koko met Jim, by appointment, at Charing Cross, and they both set off for Regent Street to buy Dora a wedding present.
“I know a shop,” said Jim; “bought some things there at Christmas.”
“Oh yes,” said Koko, “you told me. Very nice dark girl there, eh?”
“I forget,” said Jim, indifferently; “I daresay there is. Most of the girls in these shops are dark.”
“I recollect you mentioned this one to me particularly,” said Koko.
“Did I?” replied Jim. “Well, I daresay I did. Anyhow, I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m going to get. Been thinking about it for three weeks, too.”
“Personally,” said Koko, “I am going to buy her a work-box.”
“A what?”
“A work-box—full of pins and needles and tapes, and all that sort of thing.”
“I thought ladies used work-baskets,” hazarded Jim, vaguely.
“Boxes,” said Koko.
“Baskets,” insisted Jim; “work-boxes are a trifle obsolete, I believe.”
“Obsolete or not obsolete,” said Koko, “I shall get her a work-box.”
“All right,” returned Jim; “I don’t care.”
Koko stole a glance at Jim as they walked up Waterloo Place. He had noticed, of late, that Jim was looking unusually gaunt and thin. Koko felt very sorry for his friend, for, in spite of the Long ’Un’s lively manner, Koko saw that his old chum was quite a different man now to the jaunty youth who had been the life and soul of Matt’s.
“I must get him away for a holiday,” thought Koko, in his quiet way; “this business has knocked him over a bit.”
They stood for some time outside the shop staring at the array of presents in the window. Koko was staunch to his work-box, but Jim, after gazing into the window for five minutes, was still quite undecided. At length he declared he would leave it to the dark girl.
Koko walked in first, and, espying the dark girl, approached her part of the counter. Very soon a dozen work-boxes lay before him, and he was not long in making up his mind about one. Then, true to his programme, he had it well stocked with everything that Dora could possibly require—even down to a box of matches.
“You never know when you won’t want matches,” he explained to Jim.
“Well,” said Jim, brusquely, “you’ve got your work-box. Now what about me?”
“Go ahead,” said Koko; “there are about twenty thousand things to choose from in this shop.”
“A present for a lady?” queried the dark girl.
“Yes,” said Jim; “a wedding present.”
“I know the very thing,” she said, and took down from a shelf near by an ivory fan with forget-me-nots painted by hand upon it.
“Yes, very pretty,” agreed Jim; “but—er—I should prefer some other kind of flower.”
The dark girl fancied she understood.
“I have another ivory fan that is just as pretty as this one. I will get it.”
The fan was brought. Upon the pure ivory was painted a little sprig of rosemary.
“‘That’s for remembrance,’” quoted Koko, softly.
And so Jim chose the ivory fan as a wedding present for Dora.