Jean cast a twinkling glance across the table at Vanna.
“What did they want this time, Miggles? I bet anything you like, that every second letter was to beg for something that you have no business to give, and that you were weak enough to say yes all round. Can you deny it?”
“Why should I, dear child? Such a privilege. Most kind of them to have given me the opportunity. Old clothes! I don’t suppose you ever have old clothes, Miss Vanna—they always look so fresh and new. I like to see a girl in pretty clothes. When I was young, shallis were in fashion. I don’t suppose you ever saw shallis—very stiff, not nearly so graceful as your delaines. A dear lady gave me a brown shalli, trimmed with pipings. Brown was never my colour, but it wore for years—so very kind. Nowadays I have to wear wool for my poor bones. Wool always did irritate my skin. It took me weeks to get accustomed to sleep in blankets. I used to lie awake at nights tossing from side to side, and thinking of all the poor creatures who had no warm coverings—and mine the very best Whitney, the ones from the spare room, Jean, with the blue stripes. Mrs Goring said I was to have them. I’m sure if I’d been the Queen—”
“Oh, it’s wonderful to think of. Real Whitney blankets with blue stripes, on which to toss about and groan! What luck you have, Miggles, and how thankful you ought to be that you have bones to ache. If you hadn’t had that bad feverish attack, you might have been left stranded with your own bedding. It is piteous to think of.”
Miggles shook her large, ugly head with elephantine playfulness.
“Naughty child! naughty child! You are laughing at me, I can see. It is very painful, especially during the night, and I used to be so proud of my hands. I’ve had to give up wearing my turquoise ring, the knuckles are so enlarged. That really was a trial; but when you think what other people have to bear... There’s that poor man at Oxford Circus, who wheels about on a board. I always wonder if there are any legs inside his trousers, they lie so very flat; but of course one couldn’t ask. How monotonous it would be, my dear, to sit on a board from morning till night. When I thought of that, it seemed so foolish to fret about a ring... Your dear mother gave it to me one Christmas, because I had such a desire to possess a ring. It was the only one I ever had.”
“Dear Miggles,” cried Jean fondly, “I wonder you didn’t have a dozen. I wonder that every man you met didn’t press one upon you. They would have done so, if they had known what was good for them. You would have made the dearest wife!”
Miggles smiled appreciatively.
“Well, dear, I should, though I say it myself. I should have made him very comfortable. I have such a sympathy with men, poor dears, working all day long, and banks failing, and upsetting their plans, and all the bills to pay. They do deserve a little comfort at home. My nephew’s wife—Henry’s—I can’t help feeling she’s been a little to blame. Of course there’s no denying that Henry is rash, but he could have been guided, and Florence is hasty. A nice girl, too—very nice. I wouldn’t say a word against her, but you can’t help thinking sometimes, and I’m sorry for Henry. Yes! I’ve always regretted that I never had an offer. I was never pretty, like you, my dears; but personable, quite personable. A gentleman once passed the remark that if he had been young he would have wished nothing better than that nice, wholesome-looking girl; but he was quite old—a colonel, home from India, with a liver. When they are like that they admire a fresh complexion. And of course he had a wife already. It would have been pleasant to look back and remember that some one had wished to make me his wife.” Miggles gazed at the coffeepot with an air of placid regret, which quickly melted into smiles. “But, however—he mightn’t have turned out well. One never knows, and I read a sweet little poem in a magazine which might have been written to meet my case. She said (a lady wrote it; I should think she had had a disappointment), ‘If I never have a child of my own, with its little hands, and pattering feet, still all the children of the world are mine, to love and to mother.’ Such a beautiful thought, was it not?”
“Beautiful, indeed, and so original. She was a great poet, my Miggles. Talking of suitors, Piers Rendall is coming to tea. We’ll have it here, please. Piers likes a nursery tea set out on the table, with plenty of apricot jam, and thick sensible bread-and-butter; no shavings. Plum-cake; not plain—he detests caraway seeds, and two lumps of sugar in his tea.”