Sparrows Part 69

"You don't want it?"

"Don't I! A girl who can write a letter like that to a chap isn't easily forgotten, I can tell you."

Mavis did not reply. Windebank, seeing how she was embarra.s.sed, told her of his more recent doings; how, after getting Perigal's letter, he had set out for England as soon as he could start; how he had saved three days by taking the overland route from Brindisi (such was his anxiety to see his little Mavis, who had never been wholly out of his thoughts), to arrive home before he was expected.

"I had an early feed and came out hoping to see you," he concluded.

Mavis did not speak. She was deliberating if she should tell Windebank of her approaching marriage; if he cared seriously for her, it was only fair that he should know her affections were bestowed.

"Aren't you glad to see me?" he asked.

"Of course, but--"

"There are no 'buts.' You're coming home with me."

"Home!"

"To meet my people again. They're just back from Switzerland. It isn't your home--yet."

This decided her. She told him, first enjoining him to silence. To her relief, also to her surprise, he took it very calmly. His face went a shade whiter beneath his sun-tanned skin; he stood a trifle more erect than before; and that was all.

"I congratulate you," he said. "But I congratulate him a jolly sight more. Who is he?"

Mavis hesitated.

"You can tell me. It won't go any further."

"Charlie Perigal."

"Charlie Perigal?" he asked in some surprise.

"Why not?" she asked, with a note of defiance in her voice.

"But he's upside down with his father, and has been for a long time."

"What of that?"

"What are you going to live on?"

"Charlie is going to work."

"Charlie work!" The words slipped out before he could stop them. "Of course, I'd forgotten that," he added.

"You're like a lot of other people, who can't say a good word for him, because they're jealous of him," she cried.

He did not reply for a moment; when he did, it was to say very gravely:

"Naturally I am very, very jealous; it would be strange if it were otherwise. I wish you every happiness from the bottom of my heart."

"Thank you," replied Mavis, mollified.

"And G.o.d bless you."

He took off his cap and left her. Mavis watched his tall form turn the corner with a sad little feeling at her heart. But love is a selfish pa.s.sion, and when Mavis awoke three mornings later, when it wanted four days to her marriage, she would have forgotten Windebank's existence, but for the fact of his having sent her a costly, gold-mounted dressing-case. This had arrived the previous evening, at the same time as the frock that she proposed wearing at her wedding had come from Bathminster. She looked once more at the dressing-case with its sumptuous fittings, to turn to the wrappings enclosing her simple wedding gown. She took it out reverently, tenderly, to kiss it before locking the door and trying it on again. With quick, loving hands she fastened it about her; she then looked at the reflection of her adorable figure in the gla.s.s.

"Will he like me in it? Do you think he will love me in it?" she asked Jill, who, blinking her brown eyes, was scarcely awake. She then took Jill in her arms to murmur:

"Whatever happens, darling, I shall always love you."

Mavis was sick with happiness; she wondered what she had done to get so much allotted to her. All her struggles to earn a living in London, the insults to which she had been subjected, the disquiet that had troubled her mind throughout the spring, were all as forgotten as if they had never been. There was not a cloud upon the horizon of her joy.

As if to grasp her present ecstasy with both hands, she, with no inconsiderable effort, recalled all the more unhappy incidents in her life, to make believe that she was still enduring these, and that there was no prospect of escape from their defiling recurrence. She then fell to imagining how envious she would be were she acquainted with a happy Mavis Keeves who, in three days' time, was to belong, for all time, to the man of her choice.

It was with inexpressible joy that she presently permitted herself to realise that it was none other than she upon whom this great gift of happiness unspeakable had been bestowed. The rapture born of this blissful realisation impelled her to seek expression in words.

"Life is great and n.o.ble," she cried; "but love is greater."

Every nerve in her body vibrated with ecstasy. And in four days--

Two letters, thrust beneath her door by Mrs Farthing, recalled her to the trivialities of everyday life. She picked them up, to see that one was in the well-known writing of the man she loved; the other, a strange, unfamiliar scrawl, which bore the Melkbridge postmark. Eager to open her lover's letter, yet resolved to delay its perusal, so that she could look forward to the delight of reading it (Mavis was already something of an epicure in emotion), she tore open the other, to decipher its contents with difficulty. She read as follows:--

"SHAW HOUSE, MELKBRIDGE.

"MADAM,--My son has told me of his intentions with regard to yourself.

This is to tell you that, if you persist in them, I shall withdraw the a.s.sistance I was on the point of furnis.h.i.+ng in order to give him a new start in life. It rests with you whether I do my utmost to make or mar his future. For reasons I do not care to give, and which you may one day appreciate, I do what may seem to your unripe intelligence a meaningless act of cruelty.--I remain, dear Madam, Your obedient servant,

"JOHN VEZEY PERIGAL."

The sun went out of Mavis' heaven; the gorgeous hues faded from her life. She felt as if the ground were cut from under her feet, and she was falling, falling, falling she knew not where. To save herself, she seized and opened Perigal's letter.

This told her that he knew the contents of his father's note; that he was still eager to wed her as arranged; that they must meet by the river in the evening, when they could further discuss the situation which had arisen.

Mavis sank helplessly on her bed: she felt as if her heart had been struck a merciless blow. She was a little consoled by Perigal's letter, but, in her heart of hearts, something told her that, despite his brave words, the marriage was indefinitely postponed; indeed, it was more than doubtful if it would ever take place at all. She suffered, dumbly, despairingly; her torments were the more poignant because she realised that the man she loved beyond anything in the world must be acutely distressed at this unexpected confounding of his hopes. Her head throbbed with dull pains which gradually increased in intensity; these, at last, became so violent that she wondered if it were going to burst.

She felt the need of action, of doing anything that might momentarily ease her mind of the torments afflicting it. Her wedding frock attracted her attention. Mavis, with a lump in her throat, took off and folded this, and put it out of sight in a trunk; then, with red eyes and face the colour of lead, she flung on her work-a-day clothes, to walk mechanically to the office. The whole day she tried to come to terms with the calamity that had so suddenly befallen her; a heavy, persistent pressure on the top of her head mercifully dulled her perceptions; but at the back of her mind a resolution was momentarily gaining strength--a resolution that was to the effect that it was her duty to the man she loved to insist upon his falling in with his father's wishes. It gave her a certain dim pleasure to think that her suffering meant that, some day, Perigal would be grateful to her for her abnegation of self.

Perigal, looking middle-aged and careworn, was impatiently awaiting her arrival by the river. Her heart ached to see his altered appearance.

"My Mavis!" he cried, as he took her hand.

She tried to speak, but a little sob caught in her throat. They walked for some moments in silence.

"I told him all about it; I thought it better," said Perigal presently.

"But I never thought he'd cut up rough."

"Is there any chance of his changing his mind?"