Sparrows Part 124

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

TRIBULATION

Although, as time went on, Mavis became used to her griefs, and although she got pleasure from the opulent, cultured atmosphere with which she was surrounded, she was neither physically nor spiritually happy. It was not that the mutual love existing between herself and Harold abated one jot; neither was it that she had lost overmuch of her old joyousness in nature and life. But there were two voids in her being (one of which she knew could never be filled) which were the cause of her distress. A woman of strong domestic instincts, she would have loved nothing better than to have had one or two children. Owing to her changed circ.u.mstances, maternity would not be a.s.sociated with the acute discomforts which she had once experienced. Whenever she heard of a woman of her acquaintance having a baby, her face would change, her heart would be charged with a consuming envy. Ill.u.s.trations of children's garments in the advertis.e.m.e.nt columns of women's journals caused her to turn the page quickly. Whenever little ones visited her, she would often, particularly if the guest were a boy, furtively hug him to her heart. Once or twice, on these occasions, she caught Windebank's eye, when she wondered if he understood her longing.

Her other hunger was for things of the spirit. She was as one adrift upon a sea of doubt; many havens noticed her signals of distress, but, despite the arrant display of their attractions, she could not find one that promised anchorage to which she could completely trust. Her old-time implicit faith in the existence of a Heavenly Father, who cared for the sparrows of life, had waned. Whenever the simple belief recurred to her, as it sometimes did, she would think of Mrs Gowler's, to shudder and put the thought of beneficent interference with the things of the world from her mind.

At the same time she could not forget that when there had seemed every prospect of her being lost in the mire of London, or in the slough of anguish following upon her boy's death, she had, as if by a miracle, escaped.

Now and again, she would find herself wondering if, after all, the barque of her life had been steered by a guiding Hand, which, although it had taken her over storm-tossed seas and stranded her on lone beaches, had brought her safely, if troubled by the wrack of the waters she had pa.s.sed, into harbour.

Incapable of clear thought, she could arrive at no conclusion that satisfied her.

At last, she went to Windebank to see if he could help.

"What is one to do if one isn't altogether happy?" she asked.

"Who isn't happy?"

"I'm not altogether."

"You! But you've everything to make you."

"I know. But I'll try and explain."

"You needn't."

"Why? You don't know what troubles me."

"That's nothing to do with it. All troubles are alike in this respect, that the only thing to be done is to mend what's wrong. If you can't, you must make the best of it," he declared grimly.

After this rough-and-ready advice, Mavis felt that it would be futile to attempt a further explanation of her disquiet.

"Thanks; but it isn't so easy as it sounds," she said.

"Really!" he remarked, not without a suggestion of sarcasm in his exclamation.

About this time, Mavis saw a good deal of Perigal. He rented from her husband the farm that Harold had purchased soon after his marriage, and in which he had purposed living. Perigal had long since spent the ten thousand pounds he had inherited from his mother; he was now living on the four hundred a year his wife possessed. If anything, Mavis encouraged his frequent visits; his illuminating comments on men and things took her out of herself; also, if the truth be told, Mavis's heart held resentment against the man who had played so considerable a part in her life. Whenever Mavis was in London, the sight of a fallen woman always fed this dislike; she reflected that, but for the timely help she had enjoyed, she might have been driven to a like means of getting money if her child had been in want. Another thing that urged her against Perigal was that she constantly noticed how negligently many of the married women of her acquaintance interpreted their wifely duties, and, in most cases, to husbands who had dowered their mates with affection and worldly goods. She reflected that, by all the laws of justice, Perigal should have appreciated to the full the treasure of love and pa.s.sion which she had poured out so lavishly at his feet.

Perigal, all unconscious of the way in which Mavis regarded him, went out of his way to pay her attention.

One summer afternoon, while Harold rested indoors, Mavis gave Perigal tea beneath the shade of a witch-elm on the lawn. She was looking particularly alluring; if she were at all doubtful of this fact, the admiration expressed in Perigal's eyes would have rea.s.sured her. They had been talking lightly, brightly, each in secret pursuing the bent of their own feelings for the other, when the spectre of Mavis's spiritual troublings blotted out the sunlight and the brilliant gladness of the summer afternoon. She was silent for awhile, presently to be aware that Perigal's eyes were fixed on her face. She looked towards him, at which he sighed deeply.

"Aren't you happy?" she asked.

"How can I be?"

"You've everything you want in life."

"Have I? Since when?"

"The day you married."

"Rot!"

"What do you mean?"

"I can tell you after all that" (here he caught Mavis's eye)--"after we've been such friends--as far as I'm concerned, my marriage has been a ghastly failure."

"You mustn't tell me that," declared Mavis, to whom the news brought a secret joy.

"I can surely tell you after--after we've been such dear friends. But we don't hit it off at all. I can't stick Vic at any price."

"Nonsense! She's pretty and charming. Everyone who knows her says the same."

"When they first know her; then they think no end of a lot of her; but after a time everyone's 'off' her, although they haven't spotted the reason."

"Have you?"

"Unfortunately, that's been my privilege. Vic has enough imagination to tell her to do the right thing and all that; but otherwise, she's utterly, const.i.tutionally cold."

"Nonsense! She must have sympathy to 'do the right thing,' as you call it."

"Not necessarily. Hers comes from the imagination, as I told you; but her graceful tact chills one in no time. I might as well have married an icicle."

"I'm sorry," remarked Mavis, saying what was untrue.

"And then Vic has a conventional mind: it annoys me awfully.

Conventions are the cosmetics of morality."

"Where did you read that?"

"And these conventions, that are the rudiments of what were once full-blooded necessities, are most practised by those who have the least call for their protection. Pity me."

"I do."

Perigal's eyes brightened.

"I'm unhappy too," said Mavis, after a pause.

"Not really?"

"I wondered if you would help me."

"Try me."