Sparrows Part 83

"I won't fail to," she replied, at which Mr Napper took his leave.

Mavis went to a neighbouring tea-shop, where she obtained the food of which she was in need. When she returned to Mr Keating's office, she was shown into the inner room by Vincent, who shut the door as he left her. She was still a prey to anxiety, and succeeded in convincing herself how comparatively happy she would be if only she could get back her stolen goods. To distract her thoughts from her present trouble, she tried to be interested in the opening chapter of the work that Mr Napper had lent her. But it proved too formidable in her present state of mind. She would read a pa.s.sage, to find that it conveyed no meaning; she was more interested in the clock on the mantel-piece and wondering how long it would be before she got any news. One peculiarity of Mr Napper's book attracted her attention: she saw that, whereas the first few pages were dog's-eared and thumb-marked, the succeeding ones were as fresh as when they issued from the bookseller's hands.

While she was thus waiting in suspense, she heard strange sounds coming from the office where Vincent worked. She went to the door, to look through that part of it which was of gla.s.s. She saw Vincent, who, so far as she could gather, was talking as if to an audience, the while he held an inkpot in one hand and the office cat in the other. When he had finished talking, he caused these to vanish, at which he acknowledged the applause of an imaginary audience with repeated bows. After another speech, he reproduced the cat and the inkpot, proceedings which led Mavis to think that the boy had conjuring aspirations.

Her heart beat quickly when Mr Napper re-entered the office.

"It's all right!" he hastened to a.s.sure her. "You're to come off with me to the station to identify your property."

Mavis thanked him heartfully when she learned that the police, having received a further complaint of the house where she had spent the night, had obtained a warrant and promptly raided the place, with the result that her bag (with other missing property) had been recovered.

As they walked in the direction of the station, Mr. Napper asked her how she had got on with Locke's Human Understanding. Upon her replying that it was rather too much for her just then, he said:

"Just you listen to me."

Here he launched into an amazing farrago of scientific terms, in which the names of great thinkers and scientists were mingled at random.

There was nothing connected in his talk; he seemed to be repeating, parrot fas.h.i.+on, words and formulas that he had chanced upon in his dipping into the works that he had boasted of comprehending.

Mavis looked at him in astonishment. He mistook her surprise for admiration.

"I'm afraid you haven't understood much of what I've been saying," he remarked.

"Not very much."

"You've paid me a great compliment," he said, looking highly pleased with himself.

Then he spoke of Miss Meakin.

"You'll tell her what I've done for you?"

"Most certainly."

"Last night, at the 'light fantastic' I told you of, we had a bit of a tiff, when I spoke my mind. Would you believe it, she only danced twenty hops with me out of the twenty-three set down?"

"What bad taste!"

"I'm glad you think that. Her sending you to me shows she isn't offended at what I said. I did give it her hot. I threw in plenty of scientific terms and all that."

"Poor girl!" remarked Mavis.

"Yes, she was to be pitied. But here we are at the station."

Mavis went inside with Mr Napper, where she proved her t.i.tle to her stolen property by minutely describing the contents of her bag, from which she was rejoiced to find nothing had been taken. Her unposted letter to Perigal was with her other possessions.

As they were leaving the station, Mr Napper remarked:

"The day before yesterday I had the greatest compliment of my life paid me."

"And what was that?" asked Mavis.

"A lady told me that she'd known me three years, and that all that time she never understood what my scientific conversation was about."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

TRAVAIL

If Mavis had believed that the recovery of her property would give her peace of mind, she soon discovered how grievously she was mistaken.

Directly she left the police station with Mr Napper, all her old fears and forebodings for the future resumed sway over her thoughts. As before, she sought to allay them by undiminished faith in her lover.

She accepted Mr Napper's hospitality in the form of tea and toast at a branch of the Aerated Bread Company, where she asked him how much she was in his debt for his services. To her surprise, he replied, "Nothing at all," and added that he was only too glad to a.s.sist her, not only for Miss Meakin's sake, but because he felt that Mavis dimly appreciated his intellectuality. Upon Mavis untruthfully replying that she did, Mr Napper gave a further effort to impress, not only her, but others seated about them; he talked his jargon of scientific and philosophical phrases at the top of his voice. She was relieved when she was rid of his company. She then took train to Shepherd's Bush, where she called on Miss Meakin as promised. Much to her surprise, Miss Meakin, who was now robed in a flimsy and not too clean teagown, had not the slightest interest in knowing if Mavis had recovered her property; indeed, she had forgotten that Mavis had lost anything. She was only concerned to know what Mavis thought of Mr Napper, and what this person had said about herself: on this last matter, Mavis was repeatedly cross-questioned. Mavis then spoke of a matter she had thought of on the way down: that of engaging a room at Mrs Scatchard's if she had one to let. Miss Meakin, however, protested that she had nothing to do with the business arrangements of the house, and declared that her aunt had better be consulted.

Upon Mavis interviewing Mrs Scatchard on the matter, the latter declared that her niece had suggested the subject to her directly after Mavis had left in the morning, a statement which Miss Meakin did not appear to overhear. Mrs Scatchard showed Mavis a clean, homely little room. The walls were decorated with several photographs of celebrations, which, so far as she could see, were concerned with the doings of royalty. When it came to the discussion of terms, Mrs Scatchard pointed out to Mavis the advantage of being in a house rented by a man like Mr Scatchard, who was "so mixed up with royalty," as she phrased it; but, partly in consideration of the timely service which Mavis had once rendered Miss Meakin, and largely on the score that Mavis boasted of blood (she had done nothing of the kind), Mrs Scatchard offered her the room, together with use of the bathroom, for four-and-sixpence a week. Upon Mavis learning that the landlady would not object to Jill's presence, she closed with the offer. At Mrs Scatchard's invitation, she spent the evening in the sitting-room downstairs, where she was introduced to Mr Scatchard. If, as had been alleged, Mr Scatchard was a pillar of the throne, that august inst.i.tution was in a parlous condition. He was a red-headed, red-eyed, clean-shaven man, in appearance not unlike an elderly c.o.c.k; his blotchy face, thick utterance, and the smell of his breath, all told Mavis that he was addicted to drink. Mavis wondered how this fuddled man, whose wife let lodgings in a shabby corner of Shepherd's Bush, could be remotely a.s.sociated with Government, till it leaked out that he had been for many years, and still was, one of the King's State trumpeters.

Mavis was grateful to the Scatchards for their humble hospitality, if only because it prevented her mind from dwelling on her extremity. She was so tired with all she had gone through, that, directly she got to bed, she fell asleep, to awake about five with a mind possessed by fears for the future. Try as she could, faith in her lover refused to supply the relief necessary to allow her further sleep.

About seven, kindly Mrs Scatchard brought her up some tea, her excuse for this attention being that "blood" could not be expected to get up without a cup of this stimulant. Mrs Scatchard, like most stout women, was of a nervous, kindly, ingenuous disposition. It hurt Mavis considerably to tell her the story she had concocted, of a husband in straitened circ.u.mstances in America, who was struggling to prepare a home for her. Mrs Scatchard was herself a bereaved mother. Much moved by her recollections, she gave Mavis needed and pertinent advice with reference to her condition.

"There is kindness in the world," thought Mavis, when she was alone.

After breakfast, that was supplied at a previously arranged charge of fourpence, Mavis, fearing the company of her thoughts, betook herself to Miss Nippett in the Blomfield Road.

She found her elderly friend in bed, a queer, hapless figure in her pink flannel nightgown.

"I haven't heard anything," said Miss Nippett, as soon as she caught sight of Mavis.

"Of what?"

"What luck Mr Poulter's had at the dancing compet.i.tion! Haven't you come about that?"

"I came to see how you were."

"Don't you worry about me. I shall be right again soon; reely I shall."

Mavis tried to discover if Miss Nippett were properly looked after, but without result, Miss Nippett's mind being wholly possessed by "Poulter's" and its chief.

"He promised to send me a postcard to say how he got on, but I suppose he was too busy to remember," sighed Miss Nippett.

"Surely not!"

"He's like all these great men: all their 'earts in their fame, with no thought for their humble a.s.sistants," she complained, to add after a few moments' pause, "A pity you're married."

"Why?"

"'Cause, since I've been laid up, he's been in want of a reliable accompanist."