"Dear Miss Keeves," it ran, "it is with the very deepest regret that I write to say that certain facts have come to my knowledge with regard to the way in which you spent your holiday last year at Polperro. I, also, gather that your sudden departure from Melkbridge was in connection with this visit. As a strict moral rectitude is a sine qua non amongst those I employ, I must ask you to be good enough to resign your appointment. I enclose cheque for present and next week's salary.—Truly yours,
"MONTAGUE S.T. DEVITT."
The faces about her faded from her view; the room seemed as if it were going round.
"What's the matter, ma'am?" asked Mrs Trivett anxiously.
"I can't give the guarantee," gasped Mavis.
Mr Hutton rose and buttoned his coat.
"What about Germany?" put in Mrs Trivett.
"I'd forgotten that," said Mavis. "I'll write a telegram at once."
Mr Hutton unbuttoned his coat.
"Here's ink and paper, ma'am."
Mavis took up the pen, at which Mr Hutton sat down. But she could not remember the address. With swimming head, she dived her hand into the pockets of her frock, but could not find Windebank's letter.
"I must have left it at the office," she murmured.
"What is it you want?" asked Mrs Trivett.
"His letter for the address."
Mr Hutton got up.
"What time is it?" asked Mavis.
"Just six o'clock."
"The factory would be locked for the night. Won't they take my word?" she asked. "I don't want to be parted from my child while I go to the factory."
Mr Hutton buttoned his coat.
Mavis made an impassioned appeal to the man in possession and his friend. She might as well have talked to the stone walls which lined the Dippenham Road for any impression she produced.
"This address will find me up to ten o'clock to-night, mum," said Mr Hutton, as he threw a soiled envelope on the table. "An' if I'm woke up arter, I charge it on the interest."
When Mr Hutton had taken his leave, Mavis fought an attack of hysterics. Realising that Gunner, the broker's man, would prove as good as his word in the matter of having her sick child removed, if the money were not forthcoming, Mavis saw that there was no time to be lost. She quickly wrote two notes, one of which was to Miss Toombs, the other to Charlie Perigal. In these she briefly recounted the circumstances of her necessity. Trivett was dispatched to Miss Toombs, whilst his wife undertook to deliver Perigal's note at his father's house.
Mavis waited by her beloved boy's side while the messengers sped upon their respective errands. Her child was doubly dear to her now that their separation was threatened. As his troubled eyes looked helplessly (sometimes it seemed appealingly) into hers, she vowed again and again that he should never be taken away to be nursed by strangers. Something would happen, something must happen to prevent such a mutilation of her holiest feelings as would be occasioned by her enforced separation from her sick boy. Of course, why had she not thought of it before? Her lover, the boy's father, would return with the messenger, to be reconciled to her over the nursing of the ailing little life back to health and strength. She had read much the same sort of thing in books, which were always informed with life.
The minutes of the American clock, which had belonged to Miss Nippett, laboriously totalled into an hour. Mavis could hear Gunner uneasily shuffling in the room below. The late August evening was drawing in. Mavis quite succeeded in persuading herself that this would prove the last night of her misfortunes.
Mr Trivett was the first to return. He brought six pounds from Miss Toombs, with a note saying that it was all she could lay hands upon. This, with the four which Mavis possessed, made ten. Gunner smiled amiably and set about collecting his clay pipes, which he had left in odd corners of the cottage. Then, after half an hour of weary waiting, Mrs Trivett came to the door, which Mavis opened with trembling hands. She was alone. Her face proclaimed the fruitlessness of her errand.
"Mr Charles Perigal was out for the evening and would not be back till quite late," she had been told.
This decided Mavis to act upon a resolve that, had been formulating in her mind while waiting for Mrs Trivett's return.
"Give me half an hour," she said to the sullen Gunner. "I'll make it well worth your while." She then went upstairs to kiss her baby before setting out.
"Where are you going, ma'am?" asked tearful Mrs Trivett, who had followed her upstairs.
"To Mr Devitt. He's kind at heart. I know, if I can see him, he'll give me what I want."
"But will he see you?"
"I'll see to that. Promise you won't leave baby while I'm gone."
Mavis took a last look of her darling as she went out of the door. She then let herself out and sped in the direction of the Bathminster Road. She scarcely knew, she did not care, what she should say when she came face to face with Devitt. She had almost forgotten that he had been informed of her secret. All she knew was that she was in peril of losing her sick child, and that she was fighting for its possession with the weapons that came handiest. Nothing else in the world was of the smallest account. She also dimly realised that she was fighting for her lover's approval, to whom she would soon have to render an account of her stewardship to his son. This gave edge to her determination. She knocked at the door of the brightly lit, pretentious-looking house in the Bathminster Road.
"I want to see Mr Devitt privately," she told the fat butler who opened the door.
He would have shown her into a room, but she preferred to wait in the hall, which, just now, was littered with trunks.
"I think he's with Mr Harold," said the man, as he walked to a door at the further end of the hall.
The trunk labels were written in a firm, bold hand, which caught Mavis's eye. "Harold Devitt, Esq., Homeleigh, Swanage, Dorset," was the apparent destination of the luggage.
"Mr Devitt must be in the drawing-room," said Hayter, as he reappeared to walk up the stairs.
Mavis, scarcely knowing what she was doing, followed the man up the heavily carpeted stairs, which did not betray her footfalls.
The man opened the door of the drawing-room.
As she followed close on his heels, she heard a terrific peal at the front door bell. Recollection of what she saw in the drawing-room is burned into Mavis's memory and will remain there till her last moment of consciousness.
Montague Devitt, in evening dress, was lolling before the fireplace. His wife and her sister were busily engaged in unpacking showy articles from boxes, which Mavis divined to be wedding gifts. Victoria Devitt, sumptuously dressed, was seated on a low chair. Bending over her shoulder in an attitude of unconcealed devotion was Charlie Perigal.
Mavis took in the significance of all that she saw at a glance. Her blood went ice cold. Something snapped in her head. She opened her lips to speak, but no words issued. Instead, one arm was uplifted to accuse. Then she became rigid; only her eyes were eloquent.
Perigal was struck dumb by the apparently miraculous appearance of Mavis in the room. Then, as her still body continued to menace him with a gesture of seemingly eternal accusation, he became shamefaced. A hum of voices sounded in Mavis's ears, but she was indifferent to what they were saying.
Next, as if from a great distance, she heard her name called by a familiar voice. She was impelled to turn in the direction from which it came, to see Mrs Trivett, tearful, distraught, standing in the doorway. Mavis's eyes expressed a fearful inquiry.
"Don't come back! don't come back," wailed the woman.
Thus, almost in the same breath, Mavis learned how she had lost both lover and child.
Mavis never left the still, white body of her little one. She was convinced that they were all mistaken, and that he must soon awaken from the sleep into which he had fallen. She watched, with never-wearying eyes, for the first signs of consciousness, which she firmly believed could not long be delayed. Now and again she would hold its cold form for an hour at a stretch to her heart, in the hope that the warmth of her breasts would be communicated to her child. Once, during her long watch, she fancied that she saw his lips twitch. She excitedly called to Mrs Trivett, to whom, when she came upstairs, she told the glad news. To humour the bereaved mother, Mrs Trivett waited for further signs of animation, the absence of which by no means diminished Mavis's confidence in their ultimate appearance. Her faith in her baby's returning vitality, that never waned, that nothing could disturb, was so unwaveringly steadfast, that, at last, Mrs Trivett feared to approach her. Letters arrived from Miss Toombs, Perigal, Windebank, and Montague Devitt, Mavis did not open them; they accumulated on the table on which lay her untasted food. The funeral had been fixed for some days later (Mavis was indifferent as to who gave the orders), but, owing to the hot weather, it was necessary that this dread event should take place two days earlier than had originally been arranged. The night came when Mavis was compelled to take a last farewell of her loved one.
She looked at his still form with greedy, dry eyes, which never flinched. By and by, Mrs Trivett gently touched her arm, at which Mavis went downstairs without saying a word. The change from the room upstairs to the homely little parlour had the effect of making her, in some measure, realise her loss: she looked about her with wide, fearful eyes.
"My head! my head!" she suddenly cried.
"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs Trivett.
"Hold it! Hold it, someone! It's going to burst."
Mrs Trivett held the girl's burning head firmly in her hands.
"Tighter! tighter!" cried Mavis.
"Oh, deary, deary! Why isn't your husband here to comfort you?" sobbed Mrs Trivett.
Mavis's face hardened. She repressed an inclination to laugh. Then she became immersed in a stupor of despair. She knew that it would have done her a world of good if she had been able to shed tears; but the founts of emotion were dry within her. She felt as if her heart had withered. Then, it seemed as if the walls and ceiling of the room were closing in upon her; she had difficulty in breathing; she believed that if she did not get some air she would choke. She got up without saying a word, opened the door, and went out. Trivett, at a sign from his wife, rose and followed.
The night was warm and still. Mavis soon began to feel relief from the stifling sensations which had threatened her. But this relief only increased her pain, her sensibilities being now only the more capable of suffering. As Mavis walked up the deserted Broughton Road, her eyes sought the sky, which to-night was bountifully spread with stars. It occurred to her how it was just another such a night when she had walked home from Llansallas Bay; then, she had fearfully and, at the same time, tenderly held her lover's hand. The recollection neither increased nor diminished her pain; she thought of that night with such a supreme detachment of self that it seemed as if her heart were utterly dead. She turned by the dye factory and stood on the stone bridge which here crosses the Avon. The blurred reflection of the stars in the slowly moving water caused her eyes again to seek the skies.
Thought Mavis: "Beyond those myriad lights was heaven, where now was her beloved little one. At least, he was happy and free from pain, so what cause had she, who loved him, to grieve, when it was written that some day they would be reunited for ever and ever?"
Mavis looked questioningly at the stars. It would have helped her much if they had been able to betray the slightest consciousness of her longings. But they made no sign; they twinkled with aloof indifference to the grief that wrung her being. Distraught with agonised despair, and shadowed by Trivett, she walked up the principal street of the town, now bereft of any sign of life. Unwittingly, her steps strayed in the direction of the river. She walked the road lying between the churchyard and the cemetery, opened the wicket gate by the church school, and struck across the well-remembered meadows. When she came to the river, she stood awhile on the bank and watched the endless procession of water which flowed beneath her. The movement of the stream seemed, in some measure, to assuage her grief, perhaps because her mind, seeking any means of preservation, seized upon the moving water, this providing the readiest distraction that offered.
Mavis walked along the bank (shadowed by the faithful Trivett) in the direction of her nook. Still with the same detachment of mind which had affected her when she had looked at the stars in the Broughton Road, she paused at the spot where she had first seen Perigal parting the rushes upon the river bank. Unknown to him, she had marked the spot with three large stones, which, after much search, she had discovered in the adjacent meadow. As of old, the stones were where she had placed them. Something impelled her to kick them in the river, but she forbore as she remembered that this glimpse of Perigal which they commemorated was, in effect, the first breath which her boy had drawn within her. And now—-! Mavis was racked with pain. As if to escape from its clutch, she ran across the meadows in the direction of Melkbridge, closely followed by Trivett. Memories of the dead child's father crowded upon her as she ran. It seemed that she was for ever alone, separated from everything that made life tolerable by an impassable barrier of pain. When she came to the road between the churchyard and the cemetery, she felt as if she could go no further. She was bowed with anguish; to such an extent did she suffer, that she leaned on the low parapet of the cemetery for support. The ever-increasing colony of the dead was spread before her eyes. She examined its characteristics with an immense but dread curiosity. It seemed to Mavis that, even in death, the hateful distinctions between rich and poor found expression. The well-to-do had pretentious monuments which bordered the most considerable avenue; their graves were trim, well-kept, filled with expensive blooms, whilst all that testified to remembrance on the part of the living on the resting-places of the poor were a few wild flowers stuck in a gallipot. Away in a corner was the solid monument of the deceased members of a county family. They appeared, even in death, to shun companionship with those of their species they had avoided in life. It, also, seemed as if most of the dead were as gregarious as the living; well-to-do and poor appeared to want company; hence, the graves were all huddled together. There were exceptions. Now and again, one little outpost of death had invaded a level spread of turf, much in the manner of human beings who dislike, and live remote from, their kind.
But it was the personal application of all she saw before her which tugged at her heartstrings. It made her rage to think that the little life to which her agony of body had given birth should be torn from the warmth of her arms to sleep for ever in this unnatural solitude. It could not be. She despairingly rebelled against the merciless fate which had overridden her. In her agony, she beat the stones of the parapet with her hands. Perhaps she believed that in so doing she would awaken to find her sorrows to have been a horrid dream. The fact that she did not start from sleep brought home the grim reality of her griefs. There was no delusion: her baby lay dead at home; her lover, to whom she had confided her very soul, was to be married to someone else. There was no escape; biting sorrow held her in its grip. She was borne down by an overwhelming torrent of suffering; she flung herself upon the parapet and cried helplessly aloud. Someone touched her arm. She turned, to see Trivett's homely form.
"I can't bear it: I can't, I can't!" she cried.
Trivett looked pitifully distressed for a few moments before saying:
"Would you like me to play?"
Mavis nodded.
"I don't know if the church is open; but, if it is, they've been decorating it for—for—Would you very much mind?"
"Play to me: play to me!" cried Mavis.
The musician, whose whole appearance was eloquent of the soil, clumped across the gravelled path of the churchyard, followed by Mavis. He tried many doors, all of which were locked, till he came to a small door in the tower; this was unfastened.
He admitted Mavis, and then struck a wax match to enable her to see. The cold smell of the church at once took her mind back to when she had entered it as a happy, careless child. With heart filled with dumb despair, she sat in the first seat she came to. As she waited, the gloom was slowly dissipated, to reveal the familiar outlines of the church. At the same time, her nostrils were assailed by the pervading and exotic smell of hot-house blooms.
The noise made by the opening of the organ shutters cracked above her head and reverberated through the building. While she waited, none of the sacred associations of the church spoke to her heart; her soul was bruised with pain, rendering her incapable of being moved by the ordinary suggestions of the place. Then Trivett played. Mavis's highly-strung, distraught mind ever, when sick as now, seeking the way of health, listened intently, devoutly, to the message of the music. Sorrow was the musician's theme: not individual grief, but the travail of an aged world. There had been, there was, such an immense accumulation of anguish that, by comparison with the sum of this, her own griefs now seemed infinitesimal. Then the organ became eloquent of the majesty of sorrow. It was of no dumb, almost grateful, resignation to the will of a Heavenly Father, who imposed suffering upon His erring children for their ultimate good, of which it spoke. Rather was the instrument eloquent of the power wielded by a pagan god of pain, before whose throne was a vast aggregation of torment, to which every human thing, and particularly loving women, were, by the conditions consequent on their nature, condemned to contribute. In return for this inevitable sacrifice, the god of pain bestowed a dignity of mind and bearing upon his votaries, which set them apart, as though they were remote from the thoughtless ruck.
While Trivett played, Mavis was eased of some of her pain, her mind being ever receptive to any message that music might offer. When the organ stopped, the cold outlines of the church chilled her to the marrow. The snap occasioned by the shutting up of the instrument seemed a signal on the part of some invisible inquisitor that her torments were to recommence. Before Trivett joined her, the sound of the church clock striking the hour smote her ear with its vibrant, insistent notes. This reminder of the measuring of time recalled to Mavis the swift flight, not only of the hours, but of the days and years. It enabled her dimly to realise the infinitesimal speck upon the chart of recorded time which even the most prolonged span of individual life occupied. So fleeting was this stay, that it almost seemed as if it were a matter of no moment if life should happen to be abbreviated by untimely death. Whilst the girl's mind thus struggled to alleviate its pain and to mend the gaps made by the slings and arrows of poignant grief in its defences, Trivett stumbled downstairs and blundered against the pews as he approached. Then the two walked home, where Mavis resumed her lonely vigil beside the ark which contained all that was mortal of her baby. No matter what further anguish this watch inflicted, she could not suffer her boy to be alone during the last night of his brief stay on earth.
The next afternoon, about two, when all Melkbridge was agog with excitement at the wedding of Major Perigal's son to Victoria Devitt, two funeral carriages might have been seen drawing up at a cottage in the Broughton Road. Under the driver's seat of the first was quickly placed a small coffin, which was smothered with wreaths, while a tall, comely, fair young woman, clad in deep mourning, stepped into the coach, the blinds of which were closely drawn. A homely, elderly man, accompanied by his wife, got into the next, and the two carriages drove off at a smart trot in the direction of the town. Soon after the little procession had started, a black spaniel might have been seen escaping into the road, where it followed the carriages with its nose to the ground, much in the same way as it had been used to follow the Pimlico 'buses in which its mistress travelled when she had carried her baby.
Mavis, white and drawn, lay back in the carriage that was proceeding on its relentless way. She did not know, she did not care, who had made the arrangements for this dismal ride. All she knew was that all she had left of life seemed confined in the glass case beneath the driver's seat.
During the morning, Mrs Trivett had brought in wreaths of flowers from Windebank, Miss Toombs, herself, and her husband. A last one had arrived, which bore upon the attached card, "From C.P., with all imaginable sympathy." Mavis, after glancing at the well-remembered writing, had trodden the flowers underfoot and then had passionately kicked the ruined wreath from the room.
He, at least, should have no part in her sorrowful lot. As she drove into the town, she was now and again met by gay carriages which were returning from setting down wedding guests at the church door. The drivers of these wore wedding favours pinned to their coats, while their whips were decorated with white satin ribbons. As each carriage passed, Mavis felt a sharp tugging at her heart. She guessed that she was not being driven to Melkbridge; she wondered with an almost impersonal curiosity whither they were bound. She had been told, but she had not listened. She had reached such depths of suffering—indeed, she had quite touched bottom—that it now needed an event of considerable moment to make the least impression on her mutilated sensibilities. When they reached the market-place and bore to the right, she gathered that they were going to Pennington.
The day was perfect—a day that in happier circumstances Mavis would have loved. The sun reigned in a cloudless sky, the blue of which was mellowed with a touch of autumn dignity. The grasses waved gladly by the road-side, and along the ditches; patches of sunlight played delightful games of hide-and-seek on hedge-rows and among the trees. Most of the bushes were gay with song, while the birds seemed to laugh in very defiance of winter when the sun was so warm. The unrestrained joy and vivacity of the day emphasised the gloom that rilled the first of the two funeral carriages. Mavis stared with dull surprise at the rollicking gaiety of the afternoon: its callousness to her anguish irked her. It made her think how unnecessary and altogether bootless was the loss she had sustained. She tried to realise that God had singled her out for suffering as a mark of His favour. But at the bottom of her heart she nourished something in the nature of resentment against the Most High. She knew that, if only life could be restored to the child, she would be base enough to forfeit her chances of eternal life in exchange for the boon. As she passed a by-lane, a smart cart, containing a youngish man and a gaily-clad, handsome, happy-looking girl, pulled up sharply in coming from this in order to avoid a collision. Mavis saw the gladness fade from the faces of the occupants of the cart as they realised the nature of the procession they had encountered. The man took off his cap; the girl looked away with frightened eyes.
Five minutes later, the two carriages entered the gates of Pennington Churchyard. The wind was blowing from Melkbridge, therefore she had not heard before the measured tolling of the bell, which now seemed, every time it struck, to stab her soul to the quick. The carriage pulled up at the door of the tiny church. After waiting a few moments, Mavis got out.
Scarcely knowing what she was doing, she walked up the church, to sit in a pew near the top. Although she never took her eyes from the flower-covered coffin, she was aware that Windebank was sitting at the back, whilst, a few moments later, Miss Toombs strolled into the church with the manner of one who had got there by the merest chance.
"Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live."
Mavis stood up directly those words were spoken; otherwise, she paid no attention to the exquisite periods of the burial service: her heart was with her boy. The present was as much as she could endure; she was nerving herself for the time when she should leave the church. Till now, she felt that her baby was part of this life and herself; then, without further ado, he would be torn from her cognisance to be put out of sight in the ground.
The inexorable minutes passed. Mavis stood before the open grave. Miss Toombs, ashamed of her earlier timidity, stood beside her. Windebank, erect and bare-headed, was a little behind. As the box containing her baby disappeared, Mavis felt as if the life were being mercilessly drawn from her. It was as if she stood there for untold ages. Then it seemed as if her heart were torn out by the roots. Blinded with pain, she found herself being led by Miss Toombs towards the carriage in which she had been driven from Melkbridge. But Mavis would not get into this. Followed by her friend, she struck into a by-path which led into a lane. Here she walked dry-eyed, numbed with pain, in a world that was hatefully strange. Then Miss Toombs made brave efforts to talk commonplaces, while tears streamed from her eyes. The top of Mavis's head seemed both hot and cold at the same time; she wondered if it would burst. Then, with a sharp bark of delight, Jill sprang from the hedge to jump delightedly about her mistress. Mavis knelt down and pressed her lips to her faithful friend's nose. At the same moment, the wind carried certain sounds to her ears from the direction of Melkbridge. Mavis looked up. The expression of fear which Miss Toombs's face wore confirmed her suspicions. Suddenly, Miss Toombs flung herself upon Mavis, and clapped her hands against the suffering woman's ears.
"Don't listen! don't listen!" screamed Miss Toombs.
But Mavis thrust aside the other woman's arms, to hear the sound of wedding bells, which were borne to her by the wind.
Mavis listened intently for some moments, the while Miss Toombs fearfully watched her. Then, Mavis placed her hands to her head, and laughed and laughed and laughed, till Miss Toombs thought that she was never going to stop.
Mavis's ride to Pennington was her last appearance out of doors for many a long day. For weeks she lay at Mrs Trivett's on the borderland of death. For nights on end, it was the merest chance whether or not she would live to see another dawn; but, in the end, youth, aided by skilful doctoring and careful nursing, prevailed against the dread illness which had fastened on her brain. As she slowly got better, the blurred shadows which had previously hovered about her took shape into doctor, nurses, and Mrs Trivett. When they told her how ill she had been, and how much better she was, despair filled her heart. She had no wish to live; her one desire was to join her little one beyond the grave.
A time came when the improvement which had set in was not maintained; she failed to get better, yet did not become worse, although Mavis rejoiced in the belief that her health was daily declining. Often, she would wake in the night to listen with glad ears to the incessant ticking of the American clock on the mantelpiece. If alone she would say:
"Go on, go on, little clock, and shorten the time till I again see my dearest."
As if in obedience to her behest, the clock seemed to tick with renewed energy.
Sometimes she would try and picture the unspeakable bliss which would be hers when the desire of her heart was gratified. She often thanked God that she would soon be with Him and her little one. She believed that He found His happiness in witnessing the joy of mothers at again meeting with their children from whom they had been parted for so long.
She had no idea who paid the expenses of her illness; she was assured by Mrs Trivett, whom she often questioned on the subject, that there was no cause for uneasiness on the matter. Her health still refusing to improve, a further medical adviser was called in. He suggested foreign travel as the most beneficial course for Mavis to pursue. But the patient flatly refused to go abroad; for a reason she could not divine, the name of Swanage constantly recurred to her mind. She did not at once remember that she had seen the name on the labels of the luggage which had cumbered the hall on the night when she had called at the Devitts. She often spoke of this watering-place, till at last it was decided that, as she had this resort so constantly in her mind, it might do her good to go there. Even then, it was many more weeks before she was well enough to be moved. She remained in a condition of torpor which the visits of Windebank or Miss Toombs failed to dissipate. At last, when a mild February came, it was deemed possible for her to make the journey. The day before it was arranged that she should start, she was told that a gentleman, who would give no name, and who had come in a carriage of which the blinds were drawn, wished to see her. When she went down to the parlour, she saw a spare old man, with a face much lined and wrinkled, who was clad in ill-fitting, old-fashioned clothes, fidgeting about the room.
"You wish to see me?" asked Mavis, as she wondered who he could be.
"Yes. My name's Perigal: Major Perigal."
Mavis did not speak.
The man seemed surprised at her silence.
"I—I knew your father," he remarked.
"I knew your son," said Mavis icily.
"More's the pity!"
Mavis looked up, mildly surprised. The man continued:
"He's mean: mean right through. I've nothing good to say of him. I know him too well."
Mavis kept silent. Major Perigal went on:
"A nice mess you've made of it."
The girl's eyes held the ghost of a smile. He continued:
"I did my best for you, but you thought yourself too clever."
Mavis looked up inquiringly.
"When I heard who it was he was going to marry, I wanted to do you a good turn for your father's sake, as I knew Charles could never make you happy. I forbade the marriage, knowing he wouldn't face poverty for you. He's hateful: hateful right through."
"And if we'd married?"
"I'd have come round, especially after seeing you. You're a daughter-in-law any man would be proud of. And now he's married that Devitt girl for her money."
"For her money?" queried Mavis.
"What little she has. Never mind her: I want to speak of you. For all your fine looks, you were too clever by half."
"What do you mean?" she asked, with dull, even voice.
"What I say. That for all your grand appearance you were much too knowing. Since you couldn't get him one way, you thought you'd have him another."
"You mean—-"
"By doing as you did."
"You insult me!" cried Mavis, now roused from her lethargy.
"Eh?"
"Insult me. And that is why you came. But since you're here, you may as well know I made a mess of it, as you call it, because I loved your son. If I'd the time over again, I suppose I'd be just such another fool. I can't help it. I loved him. I wish you good morning."
Major Pengal had never been so taken aback in his life. Mavis's words and manner carried conviction to his heart.
"I didn't know—I beg your pardon—I take hack my words," he said confusedly.
Mavis relapsed into her previous torpor.
"I didn't know there was such a woman in the world," he continued. "What you must have been through!"
Mavis did not speak.
"May I have the honour of calling on you again?" he asked with old-fashioned courtesy.
"It would be useless. I go away to-morrow."
"For good?"
"For some weeks."
"If you return, perhaps you would honour me by calling on me. I never see anyone. But, if you would permit me to say so, your friendship would be an honour."
"Thank you, but I don't know what I shall be doing," said Mavis wearily.
A few moments later, Major Perigal took his leave, but without recovering from his unaffected surprise at Mavis's honesty. He looked at her many times, to say, as he went out of the door of the parlour:
"I always believed Charles to have brains: now I know him to be a cursed fool."
The following day, Mavis, accompanied by Mrs Trivett and Jill, set out for Swanage. They took train to Dorchester, where they changed into the South-Western system, which carried them to Swanage, after making a further change at ancient Wareham. Arrived at Swanage station, they took a fly to the house of a Mrs Budd, where lodgings, at the doctor's recommendation, had been secured. On their way to Mrs Budd's, Mavis noticed a young man in a hand-propelled tricycle, which the fly overtook. The nature of the machine told Mavis that its occupant was a cripple.
If she had encountered him eighteen months ago, her heart would have filled with pity at seeing the comely young man's extremity: now, she looked at him very much as she might have noticed a cat crossing the road.
Mrs Budd was waiting on the doorstep in anxious expectation of her lodgers. To see her white hair, all but toothless mouth, and wrinkled face, she looked seventy, which was about her age; but to watch her alert, brisk movements, it would seem as if she enjoyed the energy of twenty. She ushered Mavis into her apartments, talking volubly the while; but the latter could not help seeing that, whereas she was treated with the greatest deference by the landlady, this person quite ignored the existence of Mrs Trivett.
It was with a feeling of relief that Mavis sat down to a meal after the door had been closed on Mrs Budd's chatter. The change had already done her good. Her eyes rested approvingly on the spotless table appointments.
"Poor dear!" exclaimed Mrs Trivett in pitying tones, who waited to see if Mavis had everything she wanted before eating with Mrs Budd in the kitchen.
"What's the matter?" asked Mavis.
"I knew something dreadful would happen. It's the anniversary of the day on which I had my first lot of new teeth, which gave me such dreadful pain."
"What's wrong?"
"That Mrs Budd. I took a dislike to her directly I saw her."
Mavis stared at Mrs Trivett in surprise.
"I do hope you'll be comfortable," continued Mrs Trivett. "But I fear you won't be. She looks the sort of person who would give anyone damp sheets and steal the sugar."
Mrs Trivett said more to the same effect. Mavis, remembering Mrs Budd's behaviour to her, could scarcely keep back a smile; it was the first time since her illness that anything had appeared at all amusing.
But this was not the sum of Mrs Trivett's resentment against Mrs Budd. After the meal was over, she rejoined Mavis with perspiration dropping from her forehead.
"The kitchen's like an oven, and I've nearly been roasted," complained Mrs Trivett. "And her horrid old husband is there, who can't do anything for himself."
"Why didn't you leave before you got so hot?" asked Mavis.
"It's that there Mrs Budd's fault. She's only one tooth, and it takes her all her time to eat."
"I meant, why didn't you leave so that you could finish eating in here?"
"I didn't like to, ma'am, but if you wouldn't very much mind in future—-"
"By all means, eat with me if you wish it."
"Thank you kindly. I'm sure that woman and me would come to blows before many days was over."
Mavis rested for the remainder of the day and only saw Mrs Budd during the few minutes in which the table was being either laid or cleared away; but these few minutes were enough for the landlady to tell Mavis pretty well everything of moment in her life. Mavis learned how Mrs Budd's husband had been head gardener to a neighbouring baronet, until increasing infirmities had compelled him to give up work; also, that as he had spent most of his life in hot-houses, the kitchen had always to have a big fire blazing in order that the old man might have the heat necessary for his comfort. It appeared that Mrs Budd's third daughter had died from curvature of the spine. The mother related with great pride how that, just before death, the girl's spine had formed the figure of a perfect "hess." Mavis was also informed that Mrs Budd could not think of knowing her next-door neighbour, because this person paid a penny a pound less for her suet than she herself did.
When Mavis was going upstairs to bed, she came upon Mrs Budd laboriously dragging her husband, a big, heavy man, up to bed by means of a cord slung about her shoulders and fastened to his waist. Mavis subsequently learned that Mrs Budd had performed this feat every night for the last four years, her husband having lost the use of his limbs.
After Mavis had been a few days at Mrs Budd's, she was sufficiently recovered to walk about Swanage. One day she was even strong enough to get as far as the Tilly Whim caves, where she was both surprised and disgusted to find that some surpassing mediocrity had had the fatuousness to deface the sheer glory of the cliffs with improving texts, such as represent the sum of the world's wisdom to the mind of a successful grocer, who has a hankering after the natural science which is retailed in ninepenny popular handbooks. Often in these walks, Mavis encountered the man whom she had seen upon the day of her arrival; as before, he was pulling himself along on his tricycle. The first two or three times they met, the cripple looked very hard at Jill, who always accompanied her mistress. Afterwards, he took no notice of the dog; he had eyes only for Mavis, in whom he appeared to take a lively interest. Mavis, who was well used to being stared at by men, paid no heed to the man's frequent glances in her direction.
The sea air and the change did much for Mavis's health; she was gradually roused from the lethargy from which she had suffered for so long. But with the improvement in her condition came a firmer realisation of the hard lot which was hers. Her love for Charlie Perigal had resulted in the birth of a child. Although her lover had broken his vows, she could, in some measure, have consoled herself for his loss by devoting her life to the upbringing of her boy. Now her little one had been taken from her, leaving a vast emptiness in her life which nothing could fill. God, fate, chance, whatever power it was that ruled her life, had indeed dealt hardly with her. She felt an old woman, although still a girl in years. She had no interest in life: she had nothing, no one to live for.
One bright March day, Mavis held two letters in her hand as she sat by the window of her sitting-room at Mrs Budd's. She read and re-read them, after which her eyes would glance with much perplexity in the direction of the daffodils now opening in the garden in front of the house. She pondered the contents of the letters; then, as if to distract her thoughts from an unpalatable conclusion, which the subject matter of one of the letters brought home to her, she fell to thinking of the daffodils as though they were the unselfish nurses of the other flowers, insomuch as they risked their frail lives in order to see if the world were yet warm enough for the other blossoms now abed snugly under the earth. The least important of the two letters was from Major Perigal; it had been forwarded on from Melkbridge. In his cramped, odd hand, he expressed further admiration for Mavis's conduct; he begged her to let him know directly she returned to Melkbridge, so that he might have the honour of calling on her again. The other letter was from Windebank, in which he briefly asked Mavis if she would honour him by becoming his wife. Mavis was much distressed. However brutally her heart had been bruised by the events of the last few months, she sometimes believed (this when the sun was shining) that some day it would be possible for her to conjure up some semblance of affection for Windebank, especially if she saw much of him. His mere presence radiated an atmosphere of protection. It offered a welcome harbourage after the many bufferings she had suffered upon storm-tossed seas. If she could have gone to him as she had to Perigal, she would not have hesitated a moment. Now, so far as she was concerned, there was all the difference in the world. Although she knew that her soul was not defiled by her experience with Perigal, she had dim perceptions of the way in which men, particularly manly males, looked upon such happenings. It was not in the nature of things, after all that had occurred, for Windebank to want her in a way in which she would wish to be desired by the man of her choice. Here was, apparently, no overmastering passion, but pity excited by her misfortunes. Mavis had got out of Mrs Trivett (who had long since left for Melkbridge) that it was Windebank who had insisted on paying the expenses of her illness and stay at Swanage, in spite of Major Perigal's and his son's desire to meet all costs that had been incurred. Mavis also learned that Windebank and Charles Perigal had had words on the subject—words which had culminated in blows when Windebank had told Perigal in unmeasured terms what he thought of his conduct to Mavis.
As Mavis recalled Windebank's generosity with regard to her illness, it seemed to her that this proposal of marriage was all of a piece with his other behaviour since her baby had died. Consideration for her, not love, moved his heart. If she were indeed so much to him, why did he not come down and beg her with passionate words to join her life to his?
Mavis made no allowance for the man's natural delicacy for her feelings, which he considered must have been cruelly harrowed by all she had lately suffered. Just now, there was no room in her world for the more delicate susceptibilities of emotion. She wholly misjudged him, and the more she thought of it, the more she believed that his letter was dictated by pity rather than love. This pity irked her pride and made her disinclined to accept his offer.
Then Mavis thought of Major Perigal's letter. It flattered her to think how her personality appealed to those of her own social kind. She began to realise what a desirable wife she would have made if it had not been for her meeting and subsequent attachment to Charlie Perigal. Any man, Windebank, but for this experience, would have been proud to have made her his wife. She believed that her whole-hearted devotion to a worthless man had for ever cut her off from love, wifehood, motherhood—things for which her being starved. Then she tried to fathom the why and wherefore of it all. She had always tried to do right: in situations where events were foreign to her control, she had trusted to her Heavenly Father for protection. "Why was it," she asked herself, "that her lot had not been definitely thrown in with Windebank before she had met with Charles Perigal? Why?" Such was her resentment at the ordering of events, that she set her teeth and banged her clenched fist upon the arm of her chair.
At that moment the crippled man wheeled himself past the house on his self-propelled tricycle. He looked intently at the window of the room that Mavis occupied. At the same moment Mrs Budd came into the room to ask what Mavis would like for luncheon.
"Who is that passing?" asked Mavis.
The old woman ran lightly to the window.
"The gentleman on that machine?"
"Yes. I've often seen him about."
"It's Mr Harold Devitt, miss."
"Harold Devitt! Where does he come from?" asked Mavis of Mrs Budd, who had a genius for gleaning the gossip of the place.
"Melkbridge. He's the eldest son of Mr Montague Devitt, a very rich gentleman. Mr Harold lives at Mrs Buck's with a male nurse to look after him, poor fellow."
Mrs Budd went on talking, but Mavis did not hear what she was saying. Mention of the name of Devitt was the spark that set alight a raging conflagration in her being. She had lost a happy married life with Windebank, to be as she now was, entirely owing to the Devitts. Now it was all plain enough—so plain that she wondered how she had not seen it before. It was the selfish action of the Devitts, who wished to secure Windebank for their daughter, which had prevented Montague from giving Mavis the message that Windebank had given to him. It was the Devitts who had not taken her into their house, because they feared how she might meet Windebank in Melkbridge. It was the Devitts who had given her work in a boot factory, which resulted in her meeting with Perigal. It was the Devitts, in the person of Victoria, who had prevented Perigal from keeping his many times repeated promises to marry Mavis. The Devitts had blighted her life. Black hate filled her heart, overflowed and poisoned her being. She hungered to be revenged on these Devitts, to repay them with heavy interest for the irreparable injury to her life for which she believed them responsible. Then, she remembered how tenderly Montague Devitt had always spoken of his invalid boy Harold; a soft light had come into his eyes on the few occasions on which Mavis had asked after him. A sudden resolution possessed her, to be immediately weakened by re-collections of Montague's affection for his son. Then a procession of the events in her life, which were for ever seared into her memory, passed before her mind's eye—the terror that possessed her when she learned that she was to be a mother; her interview with Perigal at Dippenham; her first night in London, when she had awakened in the room in the Euston Road; Mrs Gowler's; her days of starvation in Halverton Street; the death and burial, not only of her boy, but of her love for and faith in Perigal—all were remembered. Mavis's mind was made up. She went to her bedroom, where, with infinite deliberation, she dressed for going out.
"Mr Harold Devitt!" she said, when she came upon him waiting on his tricycle by the foolish little monument raised to the memory of one of Alfred the Great's victories over invading Danes.
The man raised his hat, while he looked intently at Mavis.
"I have to thank you for almost the dearest treasure I've ever possessed. Do you remember Jill?"
"Of course: I wondered if it might prove to be she when I first saw her. But is your name, by any chance, Miss Keeves?"
Mavis nodded.
"I've often wondered if I were ever going to meet you. And when I saw you about—-"
"You noticed me?"
"Who could help it? I'm in luck."
"What do you mean?" she asked lightly.
"Meeting with you down here."
Thus they talked for quite a long while. Long before they separated for the day, Mavis's eyes had been smiling into his.