Chapter IV A Handmaid to Mercury
Mortimer was in such haste to reach Milverton Street, that it was all Koko could do, with his short legs, to keep pace with him.
“I shall send one to myself to start with,” explained Jim, “and then I shall go in at intervals and send wires to you, and the fellows at the hospital.”
“Won’t you find it rather expensive?”
“My boy, what is money for?” exclaimed the Long ’Un with enthusiasm. “Could I employ it better than in——”
“Yes, a good deal better,” retorted Koko; “couldn’t you go in and buy halfpenny stamps, and just glance over in her direction?”
“The stamp girl wouldn’t like that,” returned Mortimer with frank vanity; “but, I say, old man, isn’t all this reckoning up of the cost rather sordid?”
“Well, perhaps it is,” agreed Koko; “but apart from that, I don’t quite see how you can effect anything. She doesn’t look the sort of girl you can even discuss the weather with, unless you have been properly introduced to her.”
“Never mind that for the present,” said Jim. “Try and suggest a suitable telegram for me to send to myself.”
“Do you wish to impress her with the fact that you have means?”
“Just as well,” said Jim; “I shall have a tidy amount some day, you know.”
“Then wire and tell me to put a pot of money for you on a horse.”
“And then?”
“Make the next something about shares—‘Buy me ten thousand Canadian Pacifics,’ let us say.”
“Well, and what’s the third wire to be about? I can’t put money on gees or buy shares every time.”
“Make her jealous. Send a wire to ‘Maggie Mortimer’ at your Pimlico address, and put ‘Best love, darling,’ at the end of it,” suggested Koko, demurely.
The Long ’Un stopped dead, and faced round on his small companion.
“Look here, Koko,” he exclaimed, “I’ve taken your advice in several—er—affairs of this sort, and they’ve all turned out badly.”
“In each case it was your own fault,” said Koko.
“In each case you really managed the business, and it came to nothing. The fact is, you don’t know anything about women. You may be all very well at a trotting match——”
“All right,” said Koko, shortly, as he turned on his heel, “you can manage this by yourself.”
“I apologise,” cried Jim.
“In that case,” said Koko, relenting, “I’ll come. But I don’t want you to round on me if it’s a failure.”
“I promise I won’t,” the Long ’Un declared, and so once more Koko stretched his short legs to the utmost in order to keep in step with Jim.
Miss Dora Maybury was quite one of the handsomest girls that ever obtained employment—by competitive examination—in the London Post-Office. It was, therefore, not at all surprising that the susceptible Jim Mortimer should have been so affected by her beauty. Dora’s hair was chestnut brown; the dreamy depths of her dark eyes were fringed o’er with long lashes, from beneath whose graceful shadow she gazed upon the world with an expression that was at once distracting and unconsciously coquettish; her lips closed in exquisite lines upon teeth that were as white as you could wish them to be; and the whole form of her face—from forehead to chin—was such as the most censorious judge of a human countenance would not have desired to be other than what it was. Dora was tall, too, and of graceful figure—in brief, she was as comely a maid as you could well behold in a year’s journeying.
It sometimes occurs that a girl brought up in luxury finds herself suddenly plunged into genteel poverty. Such was the case with Dora. Not so very long since she had lived in a great house, and ridden in carriages; then Fortune, in a sudden freak of fancy, had turned her back upon her, and, as if by a sweep of a fairy’s wand, the mansion had changed to much humbler quarters in London, and the carriages into penny and halfpenny omnibuses.
It was natural that the unusually prepossessing girl behind the counter of the post-office in Milverton Street should attract a good deal of attention. Those who had occasion to send away telegrams pretty often—busy, preoccupied men though most of them were—soon came to notice this particular clerk’s refined voice and manner. She had not been engaged in post-office work long enough to have acquired the slap-dash, curt style of the lady-clerk who has sat at the telegraphic seat of custom for several years; she was still sufficiently of an amateur, indeed, to display some human interest in many of the messages which were handed in to her. Not that a telegraph clerk is supposed to do this; but Dora could not forbear a smile when she was counting the many words of a wire from a love-sick swain to his lady-love, nor could she feel quite indifferent when a telegram bearing the direst ill-news—news of grave illness or even death—passed through her hands.
But we do not wish to have it supposed that we are holding up Dora Maybury as an angel of pity—or, indeed, as a perfect character in any sense. When business was slack, and Dora had time to think about herself, a pettish and discontented expression might often have been observed to flit across her pretty face. As a post-office clerk, Dora felt that she was not filling her proper niche in the world—and probably a good many other people thought so too.
There were five other girls behind the counter of the Milverton Street post-office, in addition to telegraphists in the room above, several male clerks, and a small gang of telegraph boys. Dora’s great friend among the other girls was Rose Cook, a fat, good-natured, sentimental creature, who was at present desperately in love with a gentleman she had met at a dance—a Mr Somers, who wrote for the newspapers. Mr Somers was a friend of some friends of Miss Cook’s, and that was how she had come to meet him, and to hear of his very tall friend, Mr Mortimer. But it should be added that Mr Somers had seen very little of Miss Cook, had no idea of the passion that consumed her, and was certainly wholly ignorant of the fact that she was employed in the Milverton Street post-office. He had only been in this particular post-office once in his life, and then he had had eyes for none save the young lady who took in the telegrams.
Now, earlier in this very day that witnessed the journey of the Long ’Un and Koko to Milverton Street, Miss Cook had been bemoaning the fact that “Mr Somers” had actually been in the post-office a few days previously, and had not so much as glanced at her.
“He was looking at you—they all do!” she had exclaimed, while discussing the matter at lunch with Dora.
Dora made no reply, but she was thinking over Miss Cook’s complimentary complaint later that day, when a very tall man entered the post-office and proceeded to one of the compartments where telegram forms and pointless pencils attached to pieces of string were supplied for the convenience of the public.
Dora noticed that the tall man occasionally glanced towards the door, and presently began to beckon to somebody who was presumably standing in the doorway. After a time the person beckoned to entered the post-office, and, as he did so, Miss Cook, who was sitting next to Dora, gave vent to a little gasp.
“What’s the matter, dear?” inquired Dora.
“That—that’s—Mr Somers!” exclaimed Miss Cook.
“And who is the other?” asked Dora, who was not greatly impressed by Mr Somers’s appearance.
“That must be his friend, Mr Mortimer.”
Quite unconscious of the fact that their identity was no secret in the post-office, the Long ’Un and Koko proceeded to compile telegrams.
“What a lot of forms Mr Mortimer is tearing up!” whispered Dora to her friend.
“Evidently sending a telegram to a girl,” replied Miss Cook, who was still looking agitated, and whose thoughts were naturally trending in a sentimental direction.
Dora smiled. The sight of Koko standing on tip-toe, and craning his head over the Long ’Un’s arm, was certainly smile-inspiring. So Dora smiled.
Presently Mortimer withdrew his head and shoulders from the compartment, and turned towards the counter. It should be added that the various communications suggested by Koko had all been condemned as worthless by the Long ’Un, who, with some pains, had finally evolved the following bald and uninspiring message: “Annie arrives nine to-night. Please meet. Jim.”
Koko turned towards the counter at the same time as Jim, and as he did so his face underwent a striking change. For there, gazing ardently upon him, sat Miss Rose Cook. In a flash Koko took in the situation, and saw that here was Jim’s chance. He could introduce Jim straight away.
It was too late to stop Jim from sending the telegram, for he was already handing in the message and gazing with undisguised admiration at Miss Maybury. And as Miss Maybury bent her beautiful head over the form, and with a swiftly moving—far too swiftly moving—pencil, proceeded to count the words thereon, Jim’s heart thumped wildly against his ribs, Jim’s brain seemed to reel, and Jim fell head over ears—hopelessly, irretrievably—IN LOVE.