"You're late!"
"I always am. I've been trying to make myself charming."
"That wouldn't be difficult."
"You think so?"
"I'm sure of it."
Mavis spoke lightly, but Harold's voice was eloquent of conviction.
"I'm sure of it," he repeated, as if to himself.
"Am I so perfect?" she asked, as her eyes sought the ground.
"In my eyes. But, then, I'm different from other men."
"You are."
"You needn't remind me of it."
"Isn't it nice to be different from others?"
"And wheel myself about because I can't walk?"
"Is that what you meant? Believe me, I didn't mean that. I was thinking how different you were to talk to, to other men I've met."
"You flatter me."
"It's the truth."
"Then, since I'm so exceptional, will you do something for me?"
"Perhaps."
"Never be later than you can help. I worry, fearing something's happened to you."
"Not really?"
"You are scarcely a subject I should fib about."
This was the beginning of a conversation that took place a fortnight after Mavis's first meeting with Harold by the sea. During this time, they had seen each other for the best part of every day when the weather was fine enough for Harold to be out of doors; as it was an exceptionally fine spring, they met constantly. Mavis was still moved by an immense hatred of the Devitt family, whom, more than ever before, she believed to be responsible for the wrongs and sufferings she had endured. In her determination to injure this family by making Harold infatuated with her, she was not a little surprised at the powers of dissimulation which she had never before suspected that she possessed. She was both ashamed and proud of this latent manifestation of her individuality—proud because she was inclined to rejoice in the power that it conferred. But, at times, this elation was diluted with self-reproaches, chiefly when she was with Harold, but not looking at him; then his deep, rich voice would awaken strange tremors in her being.
However much Mavis was occasionally moved to pity his physical misfortune, the recollection of her griefs was more than enough to harden her heart.
"Very, very strange that I should have run against you here," he went on.
"Why?"
"I was at home when your old schoolmistress's letter came about you. I remember she dragged in Ruskin."
"Poor Miss Mee!"
"I was always interested in you, and when I was in the South of France, I was always asking my people to do their best for you."
Mavis's eyes grew hard as she asked:
"You've kept your promise to me?"
"That I shouldn't tell my people I'd met you?"
"I made it because—-"
"Never mind why. You made it: that is enough for me."
Mavis's eyes softened. Then she and Harold fell to talking of Melkbridge and Montague Devitt; presently of Victoria.
"I hope she was kind to you at Melkbridge," said Harold.
"Very," declared Mavis, saying what was untrue.
"Dear Vic is a little disappointing. I'm always reproaching myself I don't love her more than I do. Have you ever met the man she married?"
"Mr. Perigal? I've met him," replied Mavis.
"Do you like him?"
"I scarcely remember."
"I don't overmuch. I'm sorry Vic married him, although my people were, of course, delighted."
"Why?"
"We're quite new people, while the Perigals are a county family. But, somehow, I don't think he'll make Vic happy."
"What makes you say that?"
"He's not happy himself. Everything he takes up he wearies of; he gets pleasure out of nothing. And the pity of it is, he's no fool; if anything, he's too many brains."
"How can anyone have too many?"
"Take Perigal's case. He's too analytical; he sees too clearly into things. It's a sort of Rontgen ray intelligence, which I wouldn't have for worlds. Isn't it old Solomon who says, 'In much wisdom there is much sorrow'?"
"Solomon says a good many things," said Mavis gravely, as she remembered how the recollection of certain passion-charged verses from the "Song" had caused her to linger by the canal at Melkbridge on a certain memorable evening of her life, with, as it proved, disastrous consequences to herself.
"Have you ever read the 'Song'?" asked Harold.
"Yes."
"I love it, but I daren't read it now."
"Why?"
"More than most things, it brings home to me my—my helplessness."
The poison, begotten of hatred, made Mavis thankful that the Devitt family had not had it all their own way in life.
When she next looked at Harold, he was intently regarding her. Mavis's glance dropped.
"But now there's something more than reading the 'Song' that makes me curse my luck," he remarked.
"And that?"
"Can't you guess?" he asked earnestly.
Mavis did not try; she was already aware of the fascination she possessed for the invalid.
For the rest of the time they were together, Mavis could get nothing out of Harold; he was depressed and absent-minded when spoken to. Mavis, of set purpose, did her utmost to take Harold out of himself.
"Thank you," he said, as she was going.
"What for?"
"Wasting your time on me and helping me to forget."
"Forget what?"
"Never mind," he said, as he wheeled himself away.
When Mavis got back to Mrs Budd's, she found a bustle of preparation afoot. Mrs Budd was running up and downstairs, carrying clean linen with all her wonted energy; whilst Hannah, her sour-faced assistant, perspired about the house with dustpan and brushes.
"Expecting a new lodger?" asked Mavis.
"It's my daughter, Mrs Perkins; she's telegraphed to say she's coming down from Kensington for a few days."
"She'll be a help."
Mrs Budd's face fell as she said:
"Well, miss, she comes from Kensington, and she has a baby."
"Is she bringing that too?"
"And her nurse," declared Mrs Budd, not without a touch of pride.
When Mrs Perkins arrived, she was wearing a picture hat, decorated with white ostrich feathers, a soiled fawn dust-coat, and high-heeled patent leather shoes. She brought with her innumerable flimsy parcels (causing, by comparison, a collapsible Japanese basket to look substantially built), and a gaily-dressed baby carried by a London slut, whose face had been polished with soap and water for the occasion.
After the dust-cloak had settled with the driver, it advanced self-consciously to the steps leading to the front door, the while it called to the London slut:
"Come along, nurse, and be careful of baby."
Mavis, who saw and heard this from the window of her sitting-room, noticed that Mrs Perkins greeted her mother, who was waiting at the door, with some condescension. When the last flimsy parcel had been taken within, Mrs Budd brought in Mrs Perkins and the baby to introduce them to Mavis. Mrs Perkins sat down and assumed a manner of superfine gentility, while she talked with a Cockney accent. Her mother remained standing. The dust-cloak lived in Kensington, it informed Mavis, "which was so convenient for the West End: it was only an hour's 'bus ride from town."
"Less than that," said Mavis to the dust-cloak.
"I have known it to take fifty-five minutes when it hasn't been stopped by funerals," declared Mrs Perkins.
Mavis looked at the dust-cloak in surprise.
"I always thought it took a quarter of an hour at the outside," remarked Mavis.
"For my part, when I go to London, I'm afraid of the 'buses," said Mrs Budd. "I always take the train to Willesden Junction. Florrie's house is only five minutes from there."
Mrs Perkins frowned, coughed, and then violently changed the subject. Mavis gave no heed to what she was saying. Her eyes were fixed on the baby, which Mrs Budd had put in her arms.
Passionate regrets filled her mind, while a dull pain assailed her heart. She held the baby with a tense grip as Mrs Perkins talked at her, the while the mother kept one eye self-consciously upon her offspring.
Baby that and baby this, she was saying, as Mavis continued to stare with dry-eyed grief at the baby's pasty face. Then blind rage possessed her.
"Why should this common brat, which, even at this early age, carried his origin in his features, live, while my sweet boy is beneath the ground in Pennington Churchyard?" she asked herself.
It was cruel, unjust. Mavis's rage was such that she was within measurable distance of dashing the baby to the ground. Perhaps the dust-cloak's maternal sensibilities scented danger, for, rather abruptly, it got up to go, giving as an excuse that it must rest in order to fulfil social engagements in Swanage. When Mrs Budd, her daughter and grandson, had gone, Mavis still sat in her chair. Her hands grasped its arms; her eyes stared before her. If, at any time, Harold's personality had caused her hatred of his family to wane, the sight of Mrs Perkins's baby was sufficient to restore its vigour.
Then it occurred to Mavis how her love for Perigal, which she had thought to be as stable as the universe, had unconsciously withered within her. It was as if there had been an immense reaction from her one-time implicit faith in her lover, making her despise, where once she had had unbounded confidence. This awakening to the declension that had taken place in her love gave her many anxious hours.
For some days Mavis saw nothing of Harold. She walked on the sweep of sea front and in the streets of the little town in the hope of meeting him, but in vain. She wondered if he had gone home, but persuaded herself that he would not have left Swanage without letting her know.
Mavis was not a little irked at Harold's indifference to her friendship; it hurt her self-esteem, which had been enhanced by the influence she had so palpably wielded over him. It also angered her to think that, after all, she would not be able to drink the draught of revenge which she had promised herself at the Devitts' expense.
All this time she had given no further thought to Windebank's letter; it remained unanswered. As the days passed, and she saw nothing of Harold, she began to think considerably of the man who had written to offer her marriage. These thoughts were largely coloured with resentment at the fact of Windebank's not having followed up his unanswered letter by either another communication or a personal appeal. Soon she was torn by two emotions: hatred of the Devitts and awakened interest in Windebank; she did not know which influenced her the more. She all but made up her mind to write some sort of a reply to Windebank, when she met Harold pulling himself along the road towards the sea.
He had changed in the fortnight that had elapsed since she had last seen him; his face had lost flesh; he looked worn and anxious.
When he saw her, he pulled up. She gave him a formal bow, and was about to pass him, when the hurt expression on the invalid's face caused her to stop irresolutely by his side.
"At last!" he said.
Mavis looked at him inquiringly.
"I could bear it no longer," he went on.
"Bear what?"
He did not reply; indeed, he did not appear to listen to her words, but said:
"I feared you'd gone for good."
"I've seen nothing of you either."
"Then you missed me? Tell me that you did."
"I don't know."
"I have missed YOU."
"Indeed!"
"I daren't say how much. Where are you going now?"
"Nowhere."
"May I come too?" he asked pleadingly. "I'll go a little way," she remarked.
"Meet me by the sea in ten minutes."
"Why not go there together?"
"I'd far rather meet you."
"Don't you like being seen with me?"
"Yes and no. Yes, because I am very proud at being seen with you."
"And 'no'?"
"It's why I wanted you to meet me by the sea."
"Why?"
"Can't you guess?"
"If I could I wouldn't ask."
"I'll tell you. When you walk with me, I'm afraid you notice my infirmity the more."
"I'll only go on one condition," declared Mavis.
"That—-?"
"That we go straight there from here."
"I'm helpless where you're concerned," he sighed, as he started his tricycle.
They went to the road bordering the sea, which just now they had to themselves. On the way they said little; each was occupied with their thoughts.
Mavis was touched by Harold's devotion; also, by his anxiety not to obtrude his infirmity upon her notice. She looked at him, to see in his eyes unfathomable depths of sadness. She repressed an inclination to shed tears. She had never been so near foregoing her resolve to make him the instrument of her hatred of his family. But the forces that decide these matters had other views. Mavis was staring out to sea, in order to hide her emotion from Harold's distress, when the sight of the haze where sea and sky met arrested her attention. Something in her memory struggled for expression, to be assisted by the smell of seaweed which assailed her nostrils.
In the twinkling of an eye, Mavis, in imagination, was at Llansallas Bay, with passionate love and boundless trust in her heart for the lover at her side, to whom she had surrendered so much. The merest recollection of how her love had been betrayed was enough to dissipate the consideration that she was beginning to feel for Harold. Her heart turned to stone; determination possessed her.
"Still silent!" she exclaimed.
"I have to be."
"Who said so?"
"The little sense that's left me."
"Sense is often nonsense."
"It's a bitter truth to me."
"Particularly now?"
"Now and always."
"May I know?"
"Why did you come into my life?" he asked, as if he had not heard her request.
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Why have you? Why have you?"
"You're not the only one who can ask that question," she murmured.
He looked at her for some moments in amazement before saying:
"Say that again."
"I shan't."
"If I were other than I am, I should compel you."
"How could you?"
"With my lips. As it is—-"
"Yes—tell me."
"My infirmity stops me from saying and doing what I would."
"Why let it?" asked Mavis in a low voice, while her eyes sought the ground.
"You—you mean that?" he asked, in the manner of one who scarcely believed the evidence of his ears.
"I mean it."
He did not speak for such a long time that Mavis began to wonder if he regretted his words. When she stole a look at him, she saw that his eyes were staring straight before him, as if his mind were all but overwhelmed by the subject matter of its concern.
Mavis touched his arm. He shivered slightly and glanced at her as if surprised, before he realised that she was beside him.
"Listen!" he said. "You asked—you shall know; whether you like or hate me for it. I love you. Women have never come into my life; they've always looked on me with pitying eyes. I would rather it were so. But you—you—you are beautiful, with a heart like your face, both rare and wonderful. Perhaps I love you so much because you are young and healthy. It hurts me."
His eyes held such a piteously fearful look that Mavis was moved in spite of herself. He went on:
"If my disposition were like my twisted body, it wouldn't matter. But I love life, movement, struggling. Were I as I used to be, I should love to have a beautiful, responsive woman for my own. I should love to have you."
Before Mavis knew what she had done, she had put her hand on his. Then he said, as if speaking to himself:
"What have I to offer besides a helpless, envious love? My wife would be a nurse, not a mistress, as she should be."
"Stop! stop!" she pleaded.
"No, I will not stop," he cried, as he bent over to hold her head so that her eyes looked into his. "You shall listen and then decide. I love you. If it's good enough, I'm yours. You know what I have to offer, and I ask you to be my wife because I can't help myself. Because—"
Mavis had closed her eyes for fear that he should read her heart. He passionately kissed the closed lids before sinking back exhausted in his chair.
"Listen to me," said Mavis after a while. "It's I who am to blame. Let me go away so that you can forget me."
"Forget you! forget you!" he cried. "No, you shall not go away; not till you've said 'yes' or 'no' to what I ask."
"When shall I answer?"
"Give yourself time—only—"
"Only?"
"Don't keep me waiting longer than you can help."
For three days, Mavis drifted upon uncertain tides. She was borne rapidly in one direction only to float as certainly in another. She lacked sufficient strength of purpose to cast anchor and abide by the consequences. She deplored her irresolution, but, try as she might, she found it a matter of great difficulty to give her mind to the consideration of Harold's offer. Otherwise, the most trivial happenings imprinted themselves on her brain: the aspect of the food she ate, the lines on her landlady's face, the flittings in and out of the front door of the "dust-cloak" on its way to trumpery social engagements, the while its mother minded the baby, all acquired in her eyes a prominence foreign to their importance. Also, thoughts of Windebank now and again flooded her mind. Then she remembered all he had done for her, at which gratitude welled from her soul. At such times she would be moved by a morbid consideration for his feelings; she longed to pay back the money he had spent on her illness, and felt that her mind would never be at ease on the matter till she had.
If only he would come down, and, despite anything she could say or do, insist on marrying her and determine to win her heart; failing that, if he would only write words of passionate longing which might awaken some echo in her being! She read and re-read the letter in which he offered her marriage; she tried to see in his formal phrases some approximation to a consuming love, but in vain.
She had never answered this letter; she reproached herself for not having done so. Mavis sat down to write a few words, which would reach Windebank by the first post in the morning, when she found that the ink had dried in the pot. She rang the bell. While waiting, a vision of the piteous look on Harold's face when he had told her of his love came into her mind. Accompanying this was the recollection of the cause of which her friendship with Harold was an effect. Hatred of the Devitts possessed her. She remembered, and rejoiced, that it was now in her power to be revenged for all she believed she had suffered at their hands. So black was the quality of this hate that she wondered why she had delayed so long. When the ink was brought, it was to Harold that she was about to write; Windebank was forgotten.
As Mavis wrote the day of the month at the head of the page, she seemed to hear echoes of Harold's resonant voice vibrating with love for her. She sighed and put down her pen. If only she were less infirm of purpose. Her hesitations were interrupted by Mrs Budd bringing in a letter for Mavis that the postman had just left. It was from Mrs Trivett. It described with a wealth of detail a visit that the writer had paid to Pennington Churchyard, where she had taken flowers to lay on the little grave. Certain nerves in the bereaved mother's face quivered as she read. Memories of the long-drawn agony which had followed upon her boy's death crowded into her mind. Mavis hardened her heart.
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