Sparrows Part 109

Mavis, scarcely knowing what she was doing, followed the man up the heavily carpeted stairs, which did not betray her footfalls.

The man opened the door of the drawing-room.

As she followed close on his heels, she heard a terrific peal at the front door bell. Recollection of what she saw in the drawing-room is burned into Mavis's memory and will remain there till her last moment of consciousness.

Montague Devitt, in evening dress, was lolling before the fireplace.

His wife and her sister were busily engaged in unpacking showy articles from boxes, which Mavis divined to be wedding gifts. Victoria Devitt, sumptuously dressed, was seated on a low chair. Bending over her shoulder in an att.i.tude of unconcealed devotion was Charlie Perigal.

Mavis took in the significance of all that she saw at a glance. Her blood went ice cold. Something snapped in her head. She opened her lips to speak, but no words issued. Instead, one arm was uplifted to accuse.

Then she became rigid; only her eyes were eloquent.

Perigal was struck dumb by the apparently miraculous appearance of Mavis in the room. Then, as her still body continued to menace him with a gesture of seemingly eternal accusation, he became shamefaced. A hum of voices sounded in Mavis's ears, but she was indifferent to what they were saying.

Next, as if from a great distance, she heard her name called by a familiar voice. She was impelled to turn in the direction from which it came, to see Mrs Trivett, tearful, distraught, standing in the doorway.

Mavis's eyes expressed a fearful inquiry.

"Don't come back! don't come back," wailed the woman.

Thus, almost in the same breath, Mavis learned how she had lost both lover and child.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

Mavis never left the still, white body of her little one. She was convinced that they were all mistaken, and that he must soon awaken from the sleep into which he had fallen. She watched, with never-wearying eyes, for the first signs of consciousness, which she firmly believed could not long be delayed. Now and again she would hold its cold form for an hour at a stretch to her heart, in the hope that the warmth of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s would be communicated to her child. Once, during her long watch, she fancied that she saw his lips twitch. She excitedly called to Mrs Trivett, to whom, when she came upstairs, she told the glad news. To humour the bereaved mother, Mrs Trivett waited for further signs of animation, the absence of which by no means diminished Mavis's confidence in their ultimate appearance. Her faith in her baby's returning vitality, that never waned, that nothing could disturb, was so unwaveringly steadfast, that, at last, Mrs Trivett feared to approach her. Letters arrived from Miss Toombs, Perigal, Windebank, and Montague Devitt, Mavis did not open them; they acc.u.mulated on the table on which lay her untasted food. The funeral had been fixed for some days later (Mavis was indifferent as to who gave the orders), but, owing to the hot weather, it was necessary that this dread event should take place two days earlier than had originally been arranged. The night came when Mavis was compelled to take a last farewell of her loved one.

She looked at his still form with greedy, dry eyes, which never flinched. By and by, Mrs Trivett gently touched her arm, at which Mavis went downstairs without saying a word. The change from the room upstairs to the homely little parlour had the effect of making her, in some measure, realise her loss: she looked about her with wide, fearful eyes.

"My head! my head!" she suddenly cried.

"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs Trivett.

"Hold it! Hold it, someone! It's going to burst."

Mrs Trivett held the girl's burning head firmly in her hands.

"Tighter! tighter!" cried Mavis.

"Oh, deary, deary! Why isn't your husband here to comfort you?" sobbed Mrs Trivett.

Mavis's face hardened. She repressed an inclination to laugh. Then she became immersed in a stupor of despair. She knew that it would have done her a world of good if she had been able to shed tears; but the founts of emotion were dry within her. She felt as if her heart had withered. Then, it seemed as if the walls and ceiling of the room were closing in upon her; she had difficulty in breathing; she believed that if she did not get some air she would choke. She got up without saying a word, opened the door, and went out. Trivett, at a sign from his wife, rose and followed.

The night was warm and still. Mavis soon began to feel relief from the stifling sensations which had threatened her. But this relief only increased her pain, her sensibilities being now only the more capable of suffering. As Mavis walked up the deserted Broughton Road, her eyes sought the sky, which to-night was bountifully spread with stars. It occurred to her how it was just another such a night when she had walked home from Llansallas Bay; then, she had fearfully and, at the same time, tenderly held her lover's hand. The recollection neither increased nor diminished her pain; she thought of that night with such a supreme detachment of self that it seemed as if her heart were utterly dead. She turned by the dye factory and stood on the stone bridge which here crosses the Avon. The blurred reflection of the stars in the slowly moving water caused her eyes again to seek the skies.

Thought Mavis: "Beyond those myriad lights was heaven, where now was her beloved little one. At least, he was happy and free from pain, so what cause had she, who loved him, to grieve, when it was written that some day they would be reunited for ever and ever?"

Mavis looked questioningly at the stars. It would have helped her much if they had been able to betray the slightest consciousness of her longings. But they made no sign; they twinkled with aloof indifference to the grief that wrung her being. Distraught with agonised despair, and shadowed by Trivett, she walked up the princ.i.p.al street of the town, now bereft of any sign of life. Unwittingly, her steps strayed in the direction of the river. She walked the road lying between the churchyard and the cemetery, opened the wicket gate by the church school, and struck across the well-remembered meadows. When she came to the river, she stood awhile on the bank and watched the endless procession of water which flowed beneath her. The movement of the stream seemed, in some measure, to a.s.suage her grief, perhaps because her mind, seeking any means of preservation, seized upon the moving water, this providing the readiest distraction that offered.

Mavis walked along the bank (shadowed by the faithful Trivett) in the direction of her nook. Still with the same detachment of mind which had affected her when she had looked at the stars in the Broughton Road, she paused at the spot where she had first seen Perigal parting the rushes upon the river bank. Unknown to him, she had marked the spot with three large stones, which, after much search, she had discovered in the adjacent meadow. As of old, the stones were where she had placed them. Something impelled her to kick them in the river, but she forbore as she remembered that this glimpse of Perigal which they commemorated was, in effect, the first breath which her boy had drawn within her.

And now---! Mavis was racked with pain. As if to escape from its clutch, she ran across the meadows in the direction of Melkbridge, closely followed by Trivett. Memories of the dead child's father crowded upon her as she ran. It seemed that she was for ever alone, separated from everything that made life tolerable by an impa.s.sable barrier of pain. When she came to the road between the churchyard and the cemetery, she felt as if she could go no further. She was bowed with anguish; to such an extent did she suffer, that she leaned on the low parapet of the cemetery for support. The ever-increasing colony of the dead was spread before her eyes. She examined its characteristics with an immense but dread curiosity. It seemed to Mavis that, even in death, the hateful distinctions between rich and poor found expression.

The well-to-do had pretentious monuments which bordered the most considerable avenue; their graves were trim, well-kept, filled with expensive blooms, whilst all that testified to remembrance on the part of the living on the resting-places of the poor were a few wild flowers stuck in a gallipot. Away in a corner was the solid monument of the deceased members of a county family. They appeared, even in death, to shun companions.h.i.+p with those of their species they had avoided in life. It, also, seemed as if most of the dead were as gregarious as the living; well-to-do and poor appeared to want company; hence, the graves were all huddled together. There were exceptions. Now and again, one little outpost of death had invaded a level spread of turf, much in the manner of human beings who dislike, and live remote from, their kind.

But it was the personal application of all she saw before her which tugged at her heartstrings. It made her rage to think that the little life to which her agony of body had given birth should be torn from the warmth of her arms to sleep for ever in this unnatural solitude. It could not be. She despairingly rebelled against the merciless fate which had overridden her. In her agony, she beat the stones of the parapet with her hands. Perhaps she believed that in so doing she would awaken to find her sorrows to have been a horrid dream. The fact that she did not start from sleep brought home the grim reality of her griefs. There was no delusion: her baby lay dead at home; her lover, to whom she had confided her very soul, was to be married to someone else.

There was no escape; biting sorrow held her in its grip. She was borne down by an overwhelming torrent of suffering; she flung herself upon the parapet and cried helplessly aloud. Someone touched her arm. She turned, to see Trivett's homely form.

"I can't bear it: I can't, I can't!" she cried.

Trivett looked pitifully distressed for a few moments before saying:

"Would you like me to play?"

Mavis nodded.

"I don't know if the church is open; but, if it is, they've been decorating it for--for--Would you very much mind?"

"Play to me: play to me!" cried Mavis.

The musician, whose whole appearance was eloquent of the soil, clumped across the gravelled path of the churchyard, followed by Mavis. He tried many doors, all of which were locked, till he came to a small door in the tower; this was unfastened.

He admitted Mavis, and then struck a wax match to enable her to see.

The cold smell of the church at once took her mind back to when she had entered it as a happy, careless child. With heart filled with dumb despair, she sat in the first seat she came to. As she waited, the gloom was slowly dissipated, to reveal the familiar outlines of the church. At the same time, her nostrils were a.s.sailed by the pervading and exotic smell of hot-house blooms.

The noise made by the opening of the organ shutters cracked above her head and reverberated through the building. While she waited, none of the sacred a.s.sociations of the church spoke to her heart; her soul was bruised with pain, rendering her incapable of being moved by the ordinary suggestions of the place. Then Trivett played. Mavis's highly-strung, distraught mind ever, when sick as now, seeking the way of health, listened intently, devoutly, to the message of the music.

Sorrow was the musician's theme: not individual grief, but the travail of an aged world. There had been, there was, such an immense acc.u.mulation of anguish that, by comparison with the sum of this, her own griefs now seemed infinitesimal. Then the organ became eloquent of the majesty of sorrow. It was of no dumb, almost grateful, resignation to the will of a Heavenly Father, who imposed suffering upon His erring children for their ultimate good, of which it spoke. Rather was the instrument eloquent of the power wielded by a pagan G.o.d of pain, before whose throne was a vast aggregation of torment, to which every human thing, and particularly loving women, were, by the conditions consequent on their nature, condemned to contribute. In return for this inevitable sacrifice, the G.o.d of pain bestowed a dignity of mind and bearing upon his votaries, which set them apart, as though they were remote from the thoughtless ruck.

While Trivett played, Mavis was eased of some of her pain, her mind being ever receptive to any message that music might offer. When the organ stopped, the cold outlines of the church chilled her to the marrow. The snap occasioned by the shutting up of the instrument seemed a signal on the part of some invisible inquisitor that her torments were to recommence. Before Trivett joined her, the sound of the church clock striking the hour smote her ear with its vibrant, insistent notes. This reminder of the measuring of time recalled to Mavis the swift flight, not only of the hours, but of the days and years. It enabled her dimly to realise the infinitesimal speck upon the chart of recorded time which even the most prolonged span of individual life occupied. So fleeting was this stay, that it almost seemed as if it were a matter of no moment if life should happen to be abbreviated by untimely death. Whilst the girl's mind thus struggled to alleviate its pain and to mend the gaps made by the slings and arrows of poignant grief in its defences, Trivett stumbled downstairs and blundered against the pews as he approached. Then the two walked home, where Mavis resumed her lonely vigil beside the ark which contained all that was mortal of her baby. No matter what further anguish this watch inflicted, she could not suffer her boy to be alone during the last night of his brief stay on earth.

The next afternoon, about two, when all Melkbridge was agog with excitement at the wedding of Major Perigal's son to Victoria Devitt, two funeral carriages might have been seen drawing up at a cottage in the Broughton Road. Under the driver's seat of the first was quickly placed a small coffin, which was smothered with wreaths, while a tall, comely, fair young woman, clad in deep mourning, stepped into the coach, the blinds of which were closely drawn. A homely, elderly man, accompanied by his wife, got into the next, and the two carriages drove off at a smart trot in the direction of the town. Soon after the little procession had started, a black spaniel might have been seen escaping into the road, where it followed the carriages with its nose to the ground, much in the same way as it had been used to follow the Pimlico 'buses in which its mistress travelled when she had carried her baby.

Mavis, white and drawn, lay back in the carriage that was proceeding on its relentless way. She did not know, she did not care, who had made the arrangements for this dismal ride. All she knew was that all she had left of life seemed confined in the gla.s.s case beneath the driver's seat.

During the morning, Mrs Trivett had brought in wreaths of flowers from Windebank, Miss Toombs, herself, and her husband. A last one had arrived, which bore upon the attached card, "From C.P., with all imaginable sympathy." Mavis, after glancing at the well-remembered writing, had trodden the flowers underfoot and then had pa.s.sionately kicked the ruined wreath from the room.

He, at least, should have no part in her sorrowful lot. As she drove into the town, she was now and again met by gay carriages which were returning from setting down wedding guests at the church door. The drivers of these wore wedding favours pinned to their coats, while their whips were decorated with white satin ribbons. As each carriage pa.s.sed, Mavis felt a sharp tugging at her heart. She guessed that she was not being driven to Melkbridge; she wondered with an almost impersonal curiosity whither they were bound. She had been told, but she had not listened. She had reached such depths of suffering--indeed, she had quite touched bottom--that it now needed an event of considerable moment to make the least impression on her mutilated sensibilities. When they reached the market-place and bore to the right, she gathered that they were going to Pennington.

The day was perfect--a day that in happier circ.u.mstances Mavis would have loved. The sun reigned in a cloudless sky, the blue of which was mellowed with a touch of autumn dignity. The gra.s.ses waved gladly by the road-side, and along the ditches; patches of sunlight played delightful games of hide-and-seek on hedge-rows and among the trees.

Most of the bushes were gay with song, while the birds seemed to laugh in very defiance of winter when the sun was so warm. The unrestrained joy and vivacity of the day emphasised the gloom that rilled the first of the two funeral carriages. Mavis stared with dull surprise at the rollicking gaiety of the afternoon: its callousness to her anguish irked her. It made her think how unnecessary and altogether bootless was the loss she had sustained. She tried to realise that G.o.d had singled her out for suffering as a mark of His favour. But at the bottom of her heart she nourished something in the nature of resentment against the Most High. She knew that, if only life could be restored to the child, she would be base enough to forfeit her chances of eternal life in exchange for the boon. As she pa.s.sed a by-lane, a smart cart, containing a youngish man and a gaily-clad, handsome, happy-looking girl, pulled up sharply in coming from this in order to avoid a collision. Mavis saw the gladness fade from the faces of the occupants of the cart as they realised the nature of the procession they had encountered. The man took off his cap; the girl looked away with frightened eyes.

Five minutes later, the two carriages entered the gates of Pennington Churchyard. The wind was blowing from Melkbridge, therefore she had not heard before the measured tolling of the bell, which now seemed, every time it struck, to stab her soul to the quick. The carriage pulled up at the door of the tiny church. After waiting a few moments, Mavis got out.

Scarcely knowing what she was doing, she walked up the church, to sit in a pew near the top. Although she never took her eyes from the flower-covered coffin, she was aware that Windebank was sitting at the back, whilst, a few moments later, Miss Toombs strolled into the church with the manner of one who had got there by the merest chance.

"Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live."

Mavis stood up directly those words were spoken; otherwise, she paid no attention to the exquisite periods of the burial service: her heart was with her boy. The present was as much as she could endure; she was nerving herself for the time when she should leave the church. Till now, she felt that her baby was part of this life and herself; then, without further ado, he would be torn from her cognisance to be put out of sight in the ground.