Mavis of Green Hill Part 44

But there were breakers ahead--bitter waters. I was to be spared nothing--nothing--to the final humiliation.

There was a letter from Father when the mail came in. It isn't necessary to set it down here. Suffice it to say that something I had said in my last letter about his never-failing generosity to me, had called forth a denial that "the bit of pin-money--to make you feel independent, dear!" amounted to anything. And then a word about the income Bill had settled on me: "I think you should know, Mavis," he concluded, "although I am breaking word with Bill. He told me he didn't want your small, unworldly head to be bothered with money matters. But it is time that you learned to be practical--"

He mentioned the little allowance he had insisted on making me: it would hardly have paid for my shoes. And eventually it was clear to me that the money in the bank ... my clothes ... my lovingly purchased gifts for my friends ... Sarah's wages ... my many extravagances since coming to Cuba ... everything, everything had come from the one source ... Bill. And I, more ignorant than any child about the value of money, had not even asked, except once. And then he had lied to me, had told me it was my money, my Father's money, and all the time I had been living on charity. How well he knew me, that he took the chance that I would not ask Father for a definite statement of what allowance he was making me!

I was overwhelmed with shame and dismay. It seemed as if this were the proverbial last straw. "They make gold out of straws, don't they?" my sick brain inquired childishly. It was hard to think coherently.

I went to the telephone and called the garage. Silas answered. I managed, somehow, to congratulate him on the lottery drawing before I asked him to find Dr. Denton, please, and ask him to come up to the house, if he were not too busy. I wished to speak to him.

Ten full, wretched minutes I endured before he came.

"Is anything the matter?" he asked, bursting in precipitately.

Mutely, I gave him the letter.

He read it, and crumpled the sheets in his hand.

Instantly on the defensive,

"Well?" he said.

"Was there any reason to lie to me?" I counter-questioned, quietly.

"You must have known that, sooner or later, I would know ... if not now, then when I saw Father again."

I think my eyes warned him that this was a time for very plain speaking.

"I had hoped," he answered, after a little pause, "to persuade your Father to bear me out in what I believed a harmless enough conspiracy.--After all," he added, breaking my persistent silence, "it would be difficult to explain to your Father that you refused to let me support you."

"I am sorry," I said, rather more gently than I felt, "to have been more of a burden on you than I knew. Had I known, had I for one instant dreamed that I would be dependent on you, I would never have consented to this arrangement. This may sound very foolish, I know, and I see now how impossible it all would have been,--but this is how I felt, and you, I think, knew."

He nodded, eyes on mine.

"Yes," said he.

"You have had a very pretty revenge," I told him, each word dropping like a cold, little stone into the hush of the big room. "You must have laughed, often, to yourself. No doubt it has been very amusing, waiting for the bubble to break. If you will make me out a statement, as nearly as you can, of just how much I am indebted to you, I will try to repay you little by little."

I felt the absurdity of the situation, the utter arrogance and futility of my words as I spoke them. But I had to speak.

"Please--" he flung out a protesting hand, "why do you fret yourself with trifles? Are you not willing to make some further sacrifice for your Father? When the time comes for us to separate, I had hoped--after all, it would be only the usual thing to do--to make you an allowance."

"Did you intend to consult me about it?" I asked, furiously.

He hesitated.

"Please answer," I said.

At my tone, he raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.

"I am waiting," I announced, with dangerous patience.

"Well--I admit the situation seemed difficult, but it was in the future," he answered finally, "and I thought, perhaps--"

"Never mind. You would have gone out of my life with the amusing knowledge that you had a hold on me, to a certain extent? It was well planned," I said, growing colder and colder minute by minute, until in the sunny warmth of the windows I s.h.i.+vered uncontrollably. "But you must have thought me even more of an imbecile than I am. I owe you," I ended, "a large sum of money. When we are separated, when Father gets used to that fact, and when he realizes how well I am, how strong, there will be some sort of work for me somewhere, I am sure, that will both occupy my time, and enable me to repay you."

"Work?" said Bill, and then, under his breath, "My G.o.d!"

He was angry, I knew--hurt, I felt. And I was glad.

"I am not a--charity patient, Dr. Denton!" I said, and left the room.

The rest of that day is a blank to me now. If I had suffered before, I suffered a thousand-fold now. I could not look at the miniature. I was even angry with Father--dearest Father, who had done his "human best"

for me. I hated myself, I hated life, I wanted to die. To be laughed at; to have had my little defiances and independences met with the secret thought "the very clothes on her back were bought with my money"; to have been fooled and fooled again, to his heart's content; to have lived on the bounty of a man who despised me, hurt and wounded me at every turn--it was unbearable.

When I was home again, when the tangle finally became unraveled, I would go to Uncle John. I would ask him frankly what to do; tell him the whole, bitter little story; ask him to find work for me--reading proof, correcting ma.n.u.script, scrubbing floors--I didn't care. There were business schools, I thought vaguely--and cursed the years of invalidism which had kept from me so much knowledge of the world, so unfitted me to cope with it, once I was on my material feet.

Father need never know. He would think it a whim, would be, I imagined, even a little proud, would believe, even, that I sought to distract myself after the wreck of my married life. Other women had done the same thing.

I thought of the city as I had seen it: the crowds and the loneliness and the bleakness of the streets: the hurrying, uncaring people--I had read of girls in the city; the indignities of the boarding house; the strain and the demand and the difficult way that lies before the untrained wage-earner--

Mavis of Green Hill in a New York office! I laughed aloud at the thought, and the sound of my own voice frightened me.

I couldn't cry. Somehow, I hadn't a tear left. I could only clench and unclench my hands on the lap of the little mauve gown which William Denton had bought for me--I wondered if Mrs. Goodrich knew. It had been she who had attended to all my purchases before I left Green Hill, who had gone into town with my measurements and returned with two trunks full of everything I needed, and a.s.sured me that the "bill was taken care of."

What a fool I had been!

I did not go out to tea. Sarah brought me something in my room. I told her I had a headache. It was the truth. And through my closed door I could hear Bill's voice asking for me. Mr. Crowell was there; he had ridden over some time before. I sent my regrets and stayed in my room.

At dinner I hardly spoke. I was too conscious of the clothes I wore, the food I ate. The one burdened me, the other choked me.

Bill, which was unusual, talked nervously all through the meal, about everything and nothing. Even through the dull sense of impotence and anger that possessed me, I could see that he was ill-at-ease, excited, waiting for something--waiting, perhaps, for me to reopen the last painful chapter. He could wait, I thought.

We had just been served with salad, when Fong came in, brushed Wing aside, and bent over Bill, saying something very low.

A little gleam of some inner excitement came into the steel-blue eyes.

He flung down his napkin.

"Tell Juan to wait," he said, and rose.

"I beg your pardon," he said formally to me, "but I am afraid that you must eat your dinner alone. Someone has come up from the village to see me."

"Juan?" I asked. "Is Annunciata ill again?"

"No, no," he was clearly impatient and started from the room.

"Shall I have Norah save some dinner for you?" I asked, mechanically.

"Don't bother," he said, hesitated, and then, suddenly crossing the room in four strides, he was beside me. I felt his hand on my hair and stiffened under the unaccustomed touch. The hand dropped to his side.

"Don't think so badly of me, Mavis," he said, "even if you have been a 'charity patient'--do you know the Bible meaning of Charity?"