The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [65]
‘Ah, happy days, happy days!’ Mr Fiske sat down on a nailed-up crate, and beat his hands gently on his knees. ‘As I always tell Gwennie – that’s my daughter, you know, and a high-spirited one if you like – there’s many fathers are not best pleased when their girls decide to fly the nest, but I’m not like that. I’ll be the happiest man in Her Majesty’s kingdom – God bless her sweet face – to see my girl settled down with the fellow of her choice. You be careful with that clock, Geoffrey. I know an antique when I see it.’
He got up. ‘Well, back to work. This won’t buy the baby new clothes. If you’ll pardon the expression, madam, being newly married. All the best to you, my dear, and to the lucky man.’
He took nails in his mouth, and began to hammer down the lid of the barrel which held Virginia’s dancing figure, and probably many other things that belonged to her. He softly whistled a romantic tune between the nails that splayed out between his teeth. Virginia abandoned the hope of getting him to unpack anything. She could always go to the warehouse later on when she and Joe found a larger place. You could have things unpacked there if you paid for it.
She went into her bedroom. All the furniture was gone. The suitcases which she had packed and left behind when she fled breathlessly to meet Joe were stacked in one corner and labelled with storage tags.
She went back to Mr Fiske. ‘Did my mother tell you to take those cases in the small bedroom?’
‘Everything to go was what she said.’
‘Well, you can’t. They’re my clothes. You may get away with my china, but you’re not getting away with my clothes.’
‘My dear young lady,’ Mr Fiske stopped work again. ‘I’m not trying to get away with anything. I’m merely following my orders.’
‘I’m taking those cases away with me now, as soon as I call a taxi.’
‘Phone’s cut off,’ Geoffrey said.
‘I’ll go out and get one then. Don’t you dare put those cases in the van before I get back.’
‘No call to get worked up,’ Mr Fiske said. ‘Gently does it. I know how it is, when you’re just married. All the excitement, and the novelty and that. You’re not yourself, I expect.’
‘I am perfectly myself, and the fact that I’ve just got married has nothing to do with wanting my clothes.’
‘All right, all right.’ Mr Fiske continued to soothe her paternally, as if she were the high-spirited Gwennie. ‘I haven’t said you couldn’t take them, have I? Just to prove my good intentions, I’ll carry them down for you myself.’
‘I can manage.’ Virginia rejected his coals of fire. ‘You’ve got your work to do.’
‘I must say we did want to get finished by dinner-time, reckoning without interruptions. That’s why we’re hurrying along, see?’ said Mr Fiske, who did not look as if he could hurry along from a fire. He sat down again and lit his pipe. Virginia went back to the bedroom. She had closed the door when she came out before, and now she saw that there was an envelope pinned to the top panel. On the envelope was written: ‘Mrs Joe Colonna’.
For a moment, Virginia thought that it was a parting shot from Helen, or, less likely, a gesture of reconciliation; but it was not Helen’s handwriting. She took down the envelope. It was large and thick. Inside was a bundle of folded five-pound notes, stiff and new. There was a note with them. It said:
Dearest Jinny,
Forgive an old man who only wants to be a father to you, but I couldn’t go away without giving a present to the bride. I’m taking a chance that you will come back to get your things, but if someone else finds this first, I hope it brings them lots of luck too. Be happy. I cannot imagine you as an unhappy person.
Your affectionate step-father,
Spenser Eldredge
Virginia counted the notes. Spenser’s wedding gift was a hundred pounds. Her eyes filled with tears, and one fell on to the suitcase as she bent to open it and stuff the money inside. Darling Spenser. Perhaps what she had done was worse for him than it was for Helen. He had wanted so much to take her to America.
She blew