Sparrows Part 120

"I'm sorry to hear it. I wish you good morning."

"What have I done to upset you?" asked Mavis.

"Don't pretend you don't know."

"But I don't."

"What! Then I'll tell you. You've married young Devitt, when there's a man worth all the women who ever lived eating his heart out for you."

Mavis stopped, amazed at the other woman's vehemence.

"A man who you've treated like the beast you are," continued Miss Toombs hotly. "After all that's happened, he longed to marry you, and that's more than most men would have done."

"You don't know--you can't understand," faltered Mavis.

"Yes, I do. You're not really bad; you're only a precious big fool and don't know when you've got a good thing."

"I--I love my husband."

"Rot! You may think you do, but you don't. You're much too hot-blooded to stick that kind of marriage long. I know I wouldn't. And it serves you right if you ever make a mess of it."

"I thought Sir Archibald only pitied me," said Mavis, in extenuation of her marriage.

"Pity! pity! He's a man, not a bloodless nincomp.o.o.p," said Miss Toombs.

"And it's you I have to thank for seeing him so often," she added, as her anger again flamed up.

"Sir Archibald?" asked Mavis.

"He sees me to talk about you," said Miss Toombs sorrowfully. "And he never looks twice at me. He doesn't even like me enough to ask me to go away for a week-end with him. I'm simply nothing to him, and that's the truth."

"I think you a dear, anyway. And I've got you a rise of a pound a week."

"What?"

Mavis repeated her information.

"That'll buy me some summer muslins I've long had my eye on, and one or two bits of jewellery. Then, perhaps, he'll look at me," declared Miss Toombs.

The next moment she caught sight of her reflection in Perrott's (the grocer's) window, at which she cried:

"Just look at me! What on earth could ever make that attractive?"

"Your kind nature," replied Mavis. "You're much too fond of under-valuing your appearance."

"It's all d.a.m.ned unfair!" cried Miss Toombs pa.s.sionately. "What use are your looks to you? What fun do you get out of life? Why--oh why haven't I your face and figure?"

"What would you do with it?" asked Mavis.

"Get him, get him somehow. If he wouldn't marry me I'd manage to 'live.' And he's not a cad like Charlie Perigal," cried Miss Toombs, as she hurried off to work.

When Mavis got back, she learned that the morning post had brought an invitation for the Devitts and herself for a dinner that Major Perigal was giving in two weeks' time. Major Perigal, also, wrote privately to Mavis, urging her to give him the honour of her company; he a.s.sured her that his son would not be present.

Little else but the approaching dinner was discussed by the Devitts for the rest of the day. As if to palliate their interest in the matter, they explained to Mavis how the proffered hospitality was alien to the ways of the giver of the feast. At heart they were greatly pleased with the invitation; it promised a meeting with county folk on equal terms, together with a termination to the aloofness with which Major Perigal had treated the Devitts since his son's marriage to Victoria. They accepted with alacrity. Mavis, alone, hesitated.

Her husband urged her to go, although his physical disability would prevent him from accompanying her.

"I want my dearest to go," he said. "It will give me so much pleasure to know how wonderful you looked, and how everyone admired you."

Mavis decided to accept the invitation, largely because it was her husband's wish; a little, because she had the curiosity to meet those who would have been acquaintances and friends had her father been alive. Her lot had been thrown so much among those who worked for daily bread, that she was not a little eager to mix, if it were only for a few hours, with her own social kind.

Mavis, again at Harold's wish, reluctantly ordered an expensive frock for the dinner. It was of grey taffetas embroidered upon bodice and skirt with black velvet b.u.t.terflies. The night of the dinner, when Mavis was ready to go, she showed herself to her husband before setting out. He looked at her long and intently before saying:

"I shall always remember you like this."

"What do you mean?" she asked, a little afraid.

"It isn't what I expect. It's what I deserve for marrying a glorious young creature like you."

"Am I discontented?" she asked proudly.

"G.o.d bless you. You're as good as you're beautiful," he replied.

As she stooped to kiss him, the prayer of her heart was:

"May he never know why I married him."

His eyes, alight with love, followed her as she left the room.

Major Perigal received his guests in the drawing-room. The first person whom Mavis encountered after she had greeted her host was Windebank.

She recalled that she had not seen him since her illness at Mrs Trivett's, He had written to congratulate her on her marriage when she had come to stay with the Devitts; since then, she had not heard from him.

Although Mavis knew that she might see him to-night, she was so taken aback at meeting him that she could think of nothing to say. He relieved her embarra.s.sment by talking commonplace.

"Here's someone who much wishes to meet you," he said presently. "It's Sir William Ludlow; he served with your father in India."

Mavis knew the name of Sir William Ludlow as that of a general with a long record of distinguished service.

When he was introduced by Windebank, Mavis saw that he had soldier written all over his wiry, spare person; she congratulated herself upon meeting a man who might talk of the stirring events in which he had taken so prominent a part. He had only time to tell Mavis how she more resembled her mother than her father when a move was made for the dining-room. Mavis was taken down by Windebank.

"Thank you," she said in an undertone, when they had reached the landing.

"What for?"

"All you've done."

He turned on her such a look of pain that she did not say any more.

Windebank sat on her right; General Sir William Ludlow on her left.