Without a Fairy

by Owen Oliver

WITHOUT A FAIRY

A CHRISTMAS STORY

By OWEN OLIVER

IT may have been due to the illustrations in the Christmas numbers, or it may have been due to her sweetheart's mother's mince-pies. Anyhow, Betty Lee dreamed vividly of fairies on the night before Christmas Eve, and they listened obligingly to her suggestions as to the fairy deeds which they should do. The suggestions were chiefly for the benefit of other people—Betty was like that—but they included a new evening dress for herself for the dance on Boxing Day. In the dream it was hung with many-coloured festoons like the paper chains the Lees always put up for Christmas Day.

"I wish there were fairies!" she muttered drowsily, when the alarm-clock went off in the morning. She knew that it would be a busy day for mother, and she wanted to do a few things for her before she left for business. So she had set the alarm half an hour early—at 6.35 instead of 7.15. You may think the arithmetic is wrong, but it isn't. Betty allowed ten minutes extra for making up her mind to get out in the cold earlier than usual.

However, on this occasion she only took four and a half, because she had stood little May's doll beside the alarm, and she envisaged it in the dark. An arm had come off, and Betty had promised to sew it on before she went to business. She did not wish to do this out of the time that she had allowed for mother.

"I wish," she thought, while she put on her stockings in bed, "there were fairies that got you up washed and dressed, and warmed the room and mended things. A darning fairy and a sewing fairy. Lovely!" She jumped out, turned up the light, hurried into her dressing-gown and slippers, and rushed to the bathroom. "And fairies that lit the geyser," she added. "I hate the 'pops'! … And fairies that didn't let you forget your tooth-brush!" She went back to her bedroom for it.

"Who's that?" her mother called.

"Only me," she whispered. "Don't wake anybody. I'm early. You stay in bed a little longer, mum."

But her mother got up, and was downstairs nearly as soon as Betty. She prepared the breakfast, and Betty sat in the kitchen, close to the cooking-stove for warmth, and mended things off mother's basketful, and talked. She had a very active tongue.

"Tommy does wear things so," she remarked, "but it's because they grow too small for him. Well, I suppose he grows too big for the things! … Don't forget the holly this year, like you did last, mum."

"I didn't really forget it," her mother confessed. "It was so dear, Bet. Prices are a bit lower this year, but I don't know——" She sighed.

"Just a tiny, weeny bit, then.… There, that's done. This vest really won't mend any more, mum. It's all darn. … If you'll write those notes to go with Aunt Mary's and Mrs. Filmer's cards, I can post them; and I'll get the coloured paper for the chains and help the children make them this evening. I can bring Frank in, can't I? He's good at chains, and putting them up."

"That reminds me," mother remarked. "I suppose I'd better buy a little piece of mistletoe."

Betty laughed.

"Why," she cried, "you can save it this year! That's why I got engaged!"

"Have a thought for other people," her mother said. "You aren't the only pebble on the beach, my dear. See if dad's getting up. The kettle's boiling."

Betty flew upstairs, carrying some hot water.

"Here," she admonished her father, "hurry up, you lazy old thing! Breakfast's nearly ready. Your charming wife and your lovely eldest daughter have been up for hours! Your hot water's in the bathroom. …. Ugh! What a scrubby old chin! You've scratched your beautiful daughter's beautiful face. There ought to be shaving fairies to do it while you're asleep. Why don't you grow a beard?"

"Because," her father said, "I look old enough without. I think a business fairy is what is wanted. That rise isn't coming off, Bet."

"Oh, dad! Mr. Harris is a mean old thing!"

"It isn't that," father denied. "He told me he'd like to do it, but things aren't going well with the business. It's that old skinflint Manners. He knows we're overstocked, and in want of ready cash, and he's taken the opportunity to beat us down. Harris is more or less in his power. I don't know what will happen, Bet—I haven't told your mother yet; she's harped so on my getting a rise—but, unless they come to some satisfactory arrangement to-day, I don't know that Harris will be able to afford to keep me at all. That's where there's a job for a fairy."

"Oh, dad! You don't think—you surely don't think——"

"S-sh! Mother will wonder what we're talking about. Run along. I'm late. Since we have to do without fairies, we must make the best of what good things we have, little Bets, eh? Put a button on this while I wash, will you—like a fairy?"

"Oh," she cried, "I wish I were!"

She sewed on father's button, and attached the arm to May's doll, and put a few stitches in a loose leg which also threatened to come off. She found some books for the boys to paint (to keep them quiet), served the breakfasts while mother scribbled her notes, ate her own, rushed into her outdoor clothes, ran upstairs for a handful of little handkerchiefs and stuffed them in her handbag, and raced for her 'bus.

"Cheerio!" she called over her shoulder. "I'll look for a fairy."

"And she needn't look very far," her mother thought.

"Not very far," her father agreed. "Our pretty Bet! She's very like you, mother, very like you!"

Perhaps father was a fairy for the moment when he said that, for his remark lightened mother's heavy day, which was just what one would expect a fairy to do.

Betty caught her 'bus and found standing room inside. It was a pity, she thought, that there weren't 'bus fairies to expand the seating accommodation. The early morning world—and the other-time world—could do with a lot of fairies, she reflected. Since it had to do without them, she decided there was nothing for it but for "people like me" to do all the nice things they could.

At the corner of Weston Street a thin, dejected-looking old gentleman, with a fur-lined and fur-collared overcoat, boarded the 'bus. He coughed testily.

"Outside only," the conductor warned him.

"I've a cold," the old gentleman protested. "I——"

"Outside only," the conductor repeated. "I've got all I'm allowed inside, and enough, too!"

"I'm in a hurry, and——"

"Outside only! Are you going on, or not? 1 can't stay here all day."

The old gentleman grunted and began to get off.

"I'll go outside," Betty offered. "It won't hurt me." She edged towards the door.

"I can't let you," the old gentleman began protesting; but the conductor pushed them both inside.

"Your fault if I'm run in for it," he declared gruffly, "breaking the police regulations."

"I'd rather go outside," Betty told him, "than get you in trouble."

"That's all right," he muttered. "They mayn't take any notice, being Christmas time. Christmas ain't what it was. People don't seem to believe in it."

"And that's a fact," a working-man observed. "It's a disbelieving age, and worse coming along. There's my nipper as I was telling last night about Santa Claus and Father Christmas. 'Gar'n, father,' he says. 'There ain't no fairies an' things like that.' His very words, and 'ardly turned five; but, mind you, he's sharp for his age … Sharp! … Take my seat, miss. A little bit more on my 'oofs won't 'urt me. Stand an' grow better, as the saying is."

"Thank you," Betty smiled; "but I sit at my work all day, and I expect you stand."

"Stand for my work," the man stated, "but now I'll stand for my pleasure." He got up. "You're welcome."

"And now," she told him, "you are a fairy! Tell your little boy that!"

"Ha, ha, ha I Funny old fairy, he'll say!" The man laughed. "We want a few fairies, don't we, miss?"

"Does it matter," a tired-looking little woman asked, "so long as people do fairy-like things?"

"That's right," agreed a fat woman with a big basket; "and more sense not to look for fairies to do nice things, but do 'em on our own. They pass on, and don't forget it, when anyone does a good turn to you."

"That's right," a hunchback man agreed. "This young lady starts the fairy business—being cast for the part—and the conductor passes on, and our friend that's standing 'on his hoofs'—and between times on my toes!—has done his little bit.… Next, please!"

They all laughed.

"You've been next," the stout woman told him. "Paid the young lady a pretty compliment. Trying to get off, ain't you? I'll tell your wife! "

"Charles Street!" the conductor announced. "And what do you mean about compliments, mother? Who's to know that the young lady isn't a fairy?"

The fur-coated old gentleman made for the door, with all eyes following him, turned there and bowed to Betty.

"Thank you for your kindness and consideration," he acknowledged.

"And mind you pass it on!" the stout woman called, "I'm one of them that speaks my mind, I am," she assured the rest of the passengers. "Know who he is?"

"If I hadn't," the workman stated, "I'd have offered to go outside for him, seeing his age. Old Manners, the dealer. That's 'im. You'd squeeze as much kindness out of a flint!"

"That's right," the stout woman agreed. "Aiming at him, I was, in what I said."

"I've never heard anyone say a good word for him yet," the hunchback declared, "not even a fairy."

"He—he thanked me very nicely," Betty pleaded.

"Mercer Row!" the conductor called.

Betty got up.

"Thank you so much." She smiled at the man who had given her his seat. "A merry Christmas to you—to everybody." She smiled all round, squeezed her way through the passengers, and jumped out. "Good morning, conductor!"

"Morning, miss," he answered, "and a merry Christmas." He turned to the passengers. "Now," he said judicially, "if that little gal was interdooced to me as a fairy, I won't swear as I mightn't be took in."

"If everybody were like her," the tired-looking little lady remarked, "we could get on without fairies; but I'm afraid Mr. Manners won't think of passing her kindness on."

Mr. Manners was, however, thinking of the subject at that very moment, or, rather, he was thinking how he could pass a kindness back to her. He was a hard man from loneliness rather than by nature—would probably have been quite a kindly person if he had married and had people about him like "that dear little girl." He felt that he would be glad to play fairy to Betty, only he did not know who she was, or how he would do it if he knew.

He would probably never have known, if an accident—or a fairy?—had not reminded him. Just before he reached his office he passed a young man who bowed. He stopped and leaned on his stick and looked after him.

"Now," he muttered, "I know where I've seen her before. With that young fellow—what's the boy's name?—Clarkson. That's it. Frank Clarkson. With Barlingham and Foster. Ah!"

He went into his office, nodding his head thoughtfully.

"Jones," he told his managing clerk, "someone has interested me in young Clarkson at Barlingham and Foster's. He contemplates marriage, I believe?"

"Oh, yes," Jones said. "A Miss Betty Lee; pretty little girl; typist somewhere; daughter of Lee at Harris's. By the way, Harris is coming to see you this morning. You've got him in a cloven stick."

"A cloven stick," old Manners said. "I know, I know. So she's Lee's daughter. If Harris gives up, of course Lee will have to go. How long's he been there?"

"Goodness knows," Jones said. "He was there when I came here, seventeen years ago. We shouldn't want him, not in a position that he'd take. As we always agreed, I could manage the two concerns, if you absorb Harris's show. I suppose you will?"

"I—don't—know," Manners said. "You see.… It's Christmas time, Jones, Christmas time."

"Er—yes," Jones admitted. "I don't see that has much to do with it. The better the day the better the deed. If you're thinking of keeping Harris going on the present terms, I'd say that you can't. You'd have to go easier, or he'd break. I thought that was what you expected?"

"Yes," Manners owned. He played with his paper-knife. "But something has happened——" He paused. What had happened? A fairy had passed him a kindness to be passed on! Not too much time left for passing on kindnesses. He was growing an old man. Of course, business is business; but it's only that.

"Well," he said, "you can send Harris in as soon as he comes. I'm not sure that I want to have unpleasantness just at this season."

"The governor," Jones told one of the staff, "has had a warning from the doctor, or something of that kind. Or else there's something that we don't know of in the old man's past. He's not his usual self this morning—talking of Christmas and letting Harris down easy."

As a matter of fact, Mr. Manners was thinking rather of what wasn't in his past—a wife, young people about his house, a young girl, perhaps, like Betty Lee, who passed kindnesses on.

"I wonder," he reflected, "if that is why we are given a life to live among our fellows? And no fairies to do our job. If I squeeze Harris dry, what good is the money going to do me? I shall only pass it on to charities. Why not choose my own charity while I'm alive? Why not? Why not? If she were my daughter, she wouldn't like my firm broken up. I wonder if I have suddenly become wise, or a fool?"

His verdict rather inclined to fool. Nevertheless, he passed Betty's kindness on to Harris, when he called later in the morning, a nervous and dejected man.

"It isn't only the consequences which will follow to myself," he pleaded, "if you press me. Others will be seriously affected—Lee, for example. He has been with me for six-and-twenty years, and no one ever had a better man. Knows our business from A to Z, and looks after my interests as if they were his own."

"What do you pay him?" Manners asked. Harris told him. "Umph! That doesn't strike me as adequate."

"It isn't," Harris owned. "Of course it isn't. It's just taking advantage of the fact that a man of his age doesn't find another managing berth easily, and it would be a wrench to part company—a wrench to both. He asked me yesterday for a rise. I told him that he fully deserved it, but that I hadn't the money. 'What's the use of high prices,' I said, 'if the things don't sell, Lee; and you know how I've had to dispose of stuff under cost to Mr. Manners to find cash to carry on.' If you would drive an easier bargain with me, Mr. Manners, I assure you that the moment I could afford it I should offer Lee an increase."

"Umph!" said Manners. "Well, we'll put Lee down for another—what shall we say, Harris? A hundred and fifty more? Two hundred?"

"Sir," Harris gasped, "you mean you're going to offer some terms that will enable me to keep going? I—I—my wife—the kids—I——"

"Tut, tut!" said Manners. "Let us avoid sentiment in our business, Harris. Before everything, let us avoid sentiment. I say our business, because I think that an amalgamation offers the most satisfactory solution. You see, I must naturally have my pound of flesh from an outsider; but if I can look upon you as a junior partner—— Well, it's no use having a member of the firm hampered by financial difficulties. It fetters his action. He's like a horse in hobbles—in hobbles. You follow me?"

"Sir——" Harris jerked out. "I—this kindness. It is unexpected!"

"That," Manners expostulated, "is a mistaken point of view. People should expect kindness. There would be plenty in the world if everyone who received a kindness made a point of passing it on."

Harris "passed on" to his managing clerk that very afternoon.

"Lee," he said, "my old colleague and friend, I went to see Manners this morning, and he——" He choked with emotion.

"Old friend"—Lee grasped his employer's hand—"he isn't going to—to break you, after all these years? Twenty-six years I've been with you!"

"We'll make it thirty-six!" Harris cried. "Forty-six! Fifty-six, if—— How old are we, Jack? Umph! You'd be eighty, and I'd be ninety-one. We might do it.… He's made a most liberal arrangement. Here's the draft of it. Manners and Harris! See! We haven't dealt with the staff in it, of course, but we've decided to give you another two hundred a year, old man. That's one of my greatest pleasures in the affair.… He's a fine chap. I was quite mistaken in him."

"It looks as if a fairy had got at him!" Lee laughed. "My eldest girl said this morning that she was going to look for one!"

He little thought that it had all happened because she looked in the place where everyone should look for a kind fairy—at home!

Betty was the first at her office. This rather surprised her, because Annie French, the other typist, had said that she was coming early to type an important deed, which she ought to have finished the day before, instead of writing private letters.

"And she's so slow," Betty thought, "and makes such mistakes, and has to do folios over again. She'll never get it done by ten, and he'll be mad." She meant old Mr. Grice, the head of the firm. "She needs a typing fairy."

It occurred to her that she, at any rate, could type. She considered her qualifications as a fairy, with her finger on her lip. She didn't entirely like Annie. Annie was a young lady who considered that she had "come down" to work for her living—as if work ever did anything but lift the good worker up!—and gave herself airs, and her indifferent work tended to throw the difficult and pressing work upon Betty. Still, it was hard lines on a girl who had been well off till her father's death to have to work in a lawyer's office.

"They were all so nice to me in the 'bus," she decided, "and I've got to pass it on, haven't I? It's the only way to do without fairies."

So she sat down and typed at the deed which Annie should have done.

At ten Annie had not arrived, so Betty gave the boy the typing to take in to Mr. Grice. At half-past ten he demanded Miss French, and found out who had done the work.

"And now," the boy said, "he wants you, miss."

"Gracious!" cried Betty. "I wonder what I've done wrong?"

However, Mr. Grice did not consider that she had done anything wrong, but several things right. He told her that he appreciated her good work and pleasantness and helpful disposition, and that he was giving her a rise. She said that he was very kind.

"Kindness," he told her, "deserves kindness. I hope you will have a very happy Christmas, my dear!"

"And I do hope you will, too, sir," said Betty warmly. "Thank you so much!"

Annie arrived at eleven in high glee. Her wealthy uncle had written to her to go to him at once—had sent her fifty pounds "to pay up anything owing."

"So Grice can get someone else to do his old deed!" she cried triumphantly.

"It's done," Betty told her.

"Oh! He put it on you, I suppose."

"He didn't," Betty denied. "I did it before ten."

"Oh!" Annie considered. "I say, why did you, before you were told? Was it to keep me out of a row? Betty, do you know, I think you're an angel!"

"Gracious!" Betty cried. "Wouldn't everybody laugh if they heard that? People are kind to me, so I have to pass it on."

Annie came and sat on the table, and put her hand on Betty's shoulder.

"Let me 'pass on,' Betty," she begged. "I'd love to do something for you. Now, look here. I'm going to send you a Christmas present, whether you like it or not, and it's going to be something you want. I know what that is, because we looked at it in Madame Mode's window——"

"Oh, you mustn't, Annie!"

"The cream with the pink roses," Annie said.

"I really couldn't, dear——"

"How," Annie inquired, "can I pass on if people won't be passed to? I shall go and get it now, and have it sent to you."

And she did.

At lunch Betty met Frank in Vilavinni's, as usual. He was there first, and had ordered her lunch for her already—turkey and Christmas pudding, which she thought delightfully extravagant. She told him all about everything in five minutes—the fairies, the rise, the dress, especially the rise.

"And I'm going to put it all by," she said, "if mummie won't take any. She never will. Ten shillings a week! I shall buy that desk you like for you. You can use it now, and when we furnish our house—if you don't get tired of me——"

She laughed.

"You ought to laugh at that!" he told her. (She gave him her hand under the table.) "Well, do I get in a word now? I've had a rise, Bet, and I really don't see why by this time next year—if you haven't grown tired of me——"

"I'm not that sort, boy!"

"You're the sort that—well, I can get on all right without any other fairy! It's a jolly good bonus this year, kid. I think we will be able to have a Jacobean sideboard."

That had long been the great problem when they discussed "setting up for themselves."

"Really," she thought, "there doesn't seem much need for fairies, except for poor old dad."

He nodded.

"Harris's is in a bad way," he said. "I'm afraid—— You see, he didn't know which way to turn for money, and so he sold off a lot of stock at ruinous rates to that old skinflint Manners. You know whom I mean?"

"Why, yes. He was in my 'bus this morning."

She told him what had happened.

"And really," she said, "he thanked me very nicely. You wouldn't think he was mean and selfish. If he were only a—a Santa Claus sort of old gentleman! Just think what a lot he could do with all his money, if only a fairy would wave her wand over him! Oh, Frank, why aren't there any fairies?"

"I know one," he declared, "only she hasn't the wand. … An ice, being Christmas Eve, eh?"

"Ice-cream fairy!" cried Betty. "Oh, Frank boy, you would look funny with a wand and wings! You'll come home to tea with me, won't you, and help make the paper chains? Then you shall hang up the mistletoe and kiss—mother!"

Of course he said he'd go, and went.

Father opened the door to them when they arrived home at half-past six. (They left their offices at five, but the time went somehow!)

"Well, Bet," he asked, "found your fairy?" He nodded at Frank.

"He would look funny for one, wouldn't he?" she admitted. "No. No fairy, dad! But we've done almost as well without. You just listen!" She told him excitedly about their rises and her dress (a big box from Madame Mode's had arrived, he said). She hadn't forgotten about his worries, but she was afraid to remind him of them, till it suddenly occurred to her that he looked remarkably cheerful. "Have you found one?" she inquired rapidly.

Mother came out from the dining-room then. She had been waiting round the corner to take her share in the great announcement. (Mother really was nothing but a grown-up Betty!)

"You promised I should tell them!" she cried. "Betty—Frank—Harris's is all right! Dad's had a big, big rise! Two hundred a year! So he doesn't need any fairies!"

Father put his arm round mother.

"One fairy is enough for any man to manage," he stated, "as you'll find out, Frank."

"Oh!" cried Betty. "Let me kiss you both!"

"All three," said Frank, "on an occasion like this."

Betty kissed all three.

"It is a fairy story," she declared emphatically, "without a fairy!"