The Little White Bird - J. M. Barrie (buy e reader .TXT) 📗

proceeded to talk of other matters, but presently B⁠⸺, who had been reflecting, said: “Do you know I fancy I was wrong in thinking that the waiter swore at me, and I shall withdraw the charge tomorrow.”

I was pleased to find that William’s troubles were near an end without my having to interfere in his behalf, and I then remembered that he would not be able to see the girl Irene from the library windows, which are at the back of the club. I was looking down at her, but she refrained from signalling because she could not see William, and irritated by her stupidity I went out and asked her how her mother was.

“My,” she ejaculated after a long scrutiny of me, “I b’lieve you are one of them!” and she gazed at me with delighted awe. I suppose William tells them of our splendid doings.

The invalid, it appeared, was a bit better, and this annoying child wanted to inform William that she had took all the tapiocar. She was to indicate this by licking an imaginary plate in the middle of Pall Mall. I gave the little vulgarian a shilling, and returned to the club disgusted.

“By the way, William,” I said, “Mr. B⁠⸺ is to inform the committee that he was mistaken in thinking you used improper language to him, so you will doubtless be restored to the dining-room tomorrow.”

I had to add immediately, “Remember your place, William.”

“But Mr. B⁠⸺ knows I swore,” he insisted.

“A gentleman,” I replied stiffly, “cannot remember for many hours what a waiter has said to him.”

“No, sir, but⁠—”

To stop him I had to say, “And⁠—ah⁠—William, your wife is decidedly better. She has eaten the tapioca⁠—all of it.”

“How can you know, sir?”

“By an accident.”

“Irene signed to the window?”

“No.”

“Then you saw her and went out and⁠—”

“How dare you, William?”

“Oh, sir, to do that for me! May God bl⁠—”

“William.”

He was reinstated in the dining-room, but often when I looked at him I seemed to see a dying wife in his face, and so the relations between us were still strained. But I watched the girl, and her pantomime was so illuminating that I knew the sufferer had again cleaned the platter on Tuesday, had attempted a boiled egg on Wednesday (you should have seen Irene chipping it in Pall Mall, and putting in the salt), but was in a woeful state of relapse on Thursday.

“Is your mother very ill today, Miss Irene?” I asked, as soon as I had drawn her out of range of the club-windows.

“My!” she exclaimed again, and I saw an ecstatic look pass between her and a still smaller girl with her, whom she referred to as a neighbour.

I waited coldly. William’s wife, I was informed, had looked like nothing but a dead one till she got the brandy.

“Hush, child,” I said, shocked. “You don’t know how the dead look.”

“Bless yer!” she replied.

Assisted by her friend, who was evidently enormously impressed by Irene’s intimacy with me, she gave me a good deal of miscellaneous information, as that William’s real name was Mr. Hicking, but that he was known in their street, because of the number of his shirts, as Toff Hicking. That the street held he should get away from the club before two in the morning, for his missus needed him more than the club needed him. That William replied (very sensibly) that if the club was short of waiters at suppertime some of the gentlemen might be kept waiting for their marrowbone. That he sat up with his missus most of the night, and pretended to her that he got some nice long naps at the club. That what she talked to him about mostly was the kid. That the kid was in another part of London (in charge of a person called the old woman), because there was an epidemic in Irene’s street.

“And what does the doctor say about your mother?”

“He sometimes says she would have a chance if she could get her kid back.”

“Nonsense.”

“And if she was took to the country.”

“Then why does not William take her?”

“My! And if she drank porty wine.”

“Doesn’t she?”

“No. But father, he tells her ’bout how the gentlemen drinks it.”

I turned from her with relief, but she came after me.

“Ain’t yer going to do it this time?” she demanded with a falling face. “You done it last time. I tell her you done it”⁠—she pointed to her friend who was looking wistfully at me⁠—“ain’t you to let her see you doing of it?”

For a moment I thought that her desire was another shilling, but by a piece of pantomime she showed that she wanted me to lift my hat to her. So I lifted it, and when I looked behind she had her head in the air and her neighbour was gazing at her awestruck. These little creatures are really not without merit.

About a week afterward I was in a hired landau, holding a newspaper before my face lest anyone should see me in company of a waiter and his wife. William was taking her into Surrey to stay with an old nurse of mine, and Irene was with us, wearing the most outrageous bonnet.

I formed a mean opinion of Mrs. Hicking’s intelligence from her pride in the baby, which was a very ordinary one. She created a regrettable scene when it was brought to her, because “she had been feared it would not know her again.” I could have told her that they know no one for years had I not been in terror of Irene, who dandled the child on her knees and talked to it all the way. I have never known a bolder little hussy than this Irene. She asked the infant improper questions, such as “Oo know who gave me this bonnet?” and answered them herself. “It was the pretty gentleman there,” and several times I had to affect sleep, because she announced, “Kiddy wants to kiss the pretty gentleman.”

Irksome as all this necessarily was to a man of taste,