Mavis of Green Hill Part 22

It was not until ten days later, when father, marvellously recuperating, sat up for the first time and demanded his "children"

about him that I faced the fact that what was done could not be undone, and that I was confronted by the finality of marriage.

"Well, you two," said father weakly, but with a tiny glimmer of mischief in his eyes, "it looks as if I had hurried you before the altar under false pretences. What are you going to do about it--now that I've fooled you by living?"

Beneath his half-laughter, I heard a note of anxiety, of doubt. And the resolution rose up strong and compelling within me that never, as long as I lived, should father know what he had done. It was the only way in which I could pay my debt.

"Play the game, Mavis," I said to myself, and smiled straight into father's eyes.

Bill, sitting beside me, drew a long breath. Was it relief? I glanced at him quickly and knew that for one moment we agreed.

"You old matchmaker," I said, "were you so afraid that I would never find a husband? Was it quite necessary to frighten us all to pieces in order that I should wear a wedding ring?"

Father laughed.

"Then," he asked, "It's all right--with you two?"

I turned to Bill and saw him nod once before I spoke.

"It's all right," I said, "and we're all happy."

"Thank G.o.d!" said father under his breath.

I could not bear the look on his face, and slipped blindly, without excuse, from the room.

It was the following week that John Denton came down to be with us, and hatched his plans with father. They called us in, Bill and me, and laid their schemes before us.

"We have decided," said father, very thin and pale in his armchair, "that children are best left alone, without old people to disturb them. I'm quite all right. In two weeks I shall be younger and better than I have been in twenty years. And I want you and Bill to go away, Mavis. It's time you had your honeymoon, cloudless and solitary, as all honeymoons should be. Old John here has been talking his camp in Canada to me, for an hour steady. And I'm persuaded. I'll get you infants out of the house, and then John and I and that marvelous man-servant of his who is cook and nurse and valet in one person will travel by easy stages and spend a month rusticating in the big woods.

"Can't we go too?" I begged, in a sudden panic.

"You can _not_!" said Uncle John and father in one breath.

I turned a little helplessly to my husband.

"They don't want us!" I said.

"And we don't want them!" he answered smiling. "You and I are going to Cuba. Just as soon as you can get ready. I've been talking to your father and he agrees with me that the absolute change will do you all the good in the world."

"Cuba!"

"Exactly. There is a perfectly good plantation there just waiting for us."

"But...." I said, sparring for time, "I couldn't leave Sarah."

Father laughed outright. "You baby!" he said, caressingly.

"You won't have to," said Bill. "She needs a rest as much as you do.

She's coming along--and so is your friend Peter. We can't leave him behind, and Mr. Goodrich has to sail for Spain sooner than he expected. I saw him this morning."

I was too amazed for words. And over my defenceless head the affair was settled. Canada for father and Uncle John; Cuba for Sarah, Peter, Bill, and me. A thousand protests, the old rebellious anger at having my life settled and ordered for me, rushed over me again. But father's eyes were on me and I choked back my resentment.

"Cuba it is!" I said, forcing a smile.

And so, after the maze of packing, of sending Sarah to New York for summer clothes--in the dead of winter!--after the farewells and the blessings and the thought-deadening hurry and bustle--Cuba it was.

CHAPTER IX

It was decided that my husband and I should go to New York by motor, spending the night with his uncle, Peter and Sarah to join us the following day, so that the last packing could be leisurely attended to before we sailed.

I had my farewells with father alone. Dr. Denton went in first and came out looking more moved than I believed possible. If I could have liked him at all, it would have been for his devotion to my father.

I can't write about how dear father was when he told me good-by.

John Denton went up to town with us. I begged him to, and he very naturally attributed my nervousness and pallor to the long strain of my father's illness. He was very good to me.

Leaving my house, in a sense for the first time, and knowing it would be months before I saw it again, I experienced a sinking of the heart that was terrible. Not till then had I realized how much my home meant to me, how much freedom had been mine beneath it's little roof, how lovingly the friendly walls had safeguarded and sheltered me.

At the door, I clung first to Mrs. Goodrich and then, for a long, close moment, to Sarah. She seemed a rock of strength, the last familiar landmark. But strong hands drew me away from her, and presently I was in the closed car, and we were off for New York.

I had very little sensation: only a feeling of great numbness and a consciousness that if I could know any emotion it would be that of an infinite despair. I was dimly grateful that I need not go by train. In this, at least, they had humored me. All through the long ride, I sat huddled in the new furs which were Uncle John's wedding gift to me, my eyes closed, and my hand in John Denton's warm clasp. I did not hear what the two men said to one another. Possibly, when they spoke to me, I answered. I do not know.

Something of the terrifying maelstrom of the city traffic penetrated my stupor as we came smoothly into town. It was all so new ... the noise and rush and bewilderment of it. The lights were beginning to flare up all about me: faces seen in the crowds struck at me like a blow. Such hungry, restless, seeking faces.... But here and there, the happy eyes of a girl clinging to a man's arm, or walking alone with her dreams, stood out for me, and brought the tears to my eyes.

Wearily I thought, if I could only cry again--for it seemed so long since I had known the release of tears.

I must have fainted when we reached the house, for the next thing I remember is waking up in a great, wide bed, in a huge, high-ceilinged room, with a kindly, round old woman fussing over me.

"You're to lie still, dearie," she said, as I tried to sit up, "and have a bite of supper on a tray. 'Tis the Doctor's orders, ma'am," and she smiled at me with a certain shy sweetness, and tucked a billowy eiderdown quilt more closely about my feet. I discovered then that I was undressed and surrounded by hot-water bottles.

I tried to thank her, but words were difficult. I was so very tired.

Someone knocked.

"It's himself, surely," said the old woman, as she hastened to open, and then stood aside, her hands beneath her ap.r.o.n, to let my husband come in. He thanked her, dismissed her, and came straight to my bedside, where he stood looking down at me.

I drew the clothes tight about my throat and looked at him mutely.

"How do you feel?" he asked, retrieving one of my submerged hands and placing a steady finger on the pulse.

"Tired," I answered, and then, "Oh, Doctor Denton, when will Sarah be here?"

I knew quite well: but something unreasonable in me hoped that I had slept a whole twenty-four hours away and that I would very soon hear her comforting step outside my door.

"Tomorrow," he answered, and added with a suspicion of a smile, "but I thought we were agreed that Doctor Denton, as a form of address, is taboo, under the circ.u.mstances."

"William, then," I said, with a great weariness in my heart.