Sparrows Part 117

"Anyway, she's far away from us now," said Devitt.

"Where has she gone?" asked Miss Spraggs.

"Somewhere in Dorsets.h.i.+re," Devitt informed her.

"If she hadn't gone, I should have made it my duty to urge her to leave Melkbridge," remarked Mrs Devitt.

"She's not so bad as all that," declared Devitt.

"I can't understand why men stand up for loose women," said his wife.

"She's not a loose woman: far from it. If she were, Windebank would not be so interested in her."

Devitt could not have said anything more calculated to anger the two women.

Miss Spraggs threw down her pen, whilst Mrs Devitt became white.

"She must be bad to have fascinated Sir Archibald as she has done," she declared.

"Windebank is no fool," urged her husband.

"I suppose the next thing we shall hear is that she's living under his protection," cried Mrs Devitt.

"In St John's Wood," added Miss Spraggs, whose information on such matters was thirty years behind the times.

"More likely he'll marry her," remarked Devitt.

"What!" cried the two women.

"I believe he'd give his eyes to get her," the man continued.

"He's only to ask," snapped Miss Spraggs.

"Anyway, we shall see," said Devitt.

"Should that happen, I trust you will never wish me to invite her to the house," said Mrs Devitt, rising to her full height.

"It's all very sad," remarked Devitt gloomily.

"It is: that you should take her part in the way you do, Montague,"

retorted his wife.

"I'm sorry if you're upset," her husband replied. "But I knew Miss Keeves as a little girl, when she was always laughin' and happy. It's all very, very sad."

Mrs Devitt moved to a window, where she stood staring out at the foliage which, just now, was looking self-conscious in its new finery.

"Who heard from Harold last?" asked Devitt presently.

"I did," replied Miss Spraggs. "It was on Tuesday he wrote."

"How did he write?"

"Quite light-heartedly. He has now for some weeks: such a change for him."

"H'm!"

"Why do you ask?" said Mrs Devitt.

"I saw Pritchett when I was in town yesterday."

"Harold's doctor?" queried Miss Spraggs.

"He told me he'd seen Harold last week."

"At Swanage?"

"Harold had wired for him. I wondered if anythin' was up."

"What should be 'up,' as you call it, beyond his being either better or worse?"

"That's what I want to know."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, that it was more from Pritchett's manner than from anything else that I gathered somethin' had happened."

"So long as he's well, there's nothing to worry about," said Mrs Devitt rea.s.suringly.

The late afternoon post brought a letter for Montague from his son Harold. This told his father that a supreme happiness had come in his life; that, by great good fortune, he had met and quietly married Mavis Keeves; that, by her wish, the marriage had been kept a secret for three weeks; it ended by saying how he hoped to bring his wife to his father's house early in the following week. Montague Devitt stared stupidly at the paper on which this information was conveyed; then he leaned against the mantelpiece for support. He looked as if he had been struck brutally and unexpectedly between the eyes. "Montague!

Montague!" cried his wife, as she noticed his distress.

The letter fell from his hands.

"Read!" he said faintly.

"Harold's writing!" exclaimed Mrs Devitt, as she caught up the letter.

Devitt watched her as she read; he saw her face grow hard; then her jaw dropped; her eyes stared fixedly before her. When Miss Spraggs read the letter, as she very soon did, she went into hysterics; she had a great affection for Harold. The hand of fate had struck the Devitts remorselessly; they were stunned by the blow for quite a long while.

For her part, Mrs Devitt could not believe that Providence would allow her to suffer such a terrible affliction as was provided by the fact of her stepson's marriage to Mavis; again and again she looked at the letter, as if she found it impossible to believe the evidence of her eyes.

"What's--what's to be done?" gasped Mrs Devitt, when she was presently able to speak.

"Don't ask me!" replied her husband.

"Can't you do anything?" asked Miss Spraggs, during a pause in her hysterical weeping.

"Do what?"

"Something: anything. You're a man."