Sparrows Part 3

"You argue for the sake of talking," replied the other crossly.

They continued in that strain for some moments, and were still at it when Mavis went upstairs to put on her hat; here, she gave a last look at herself in the gla.s.s.

"I wonder if I'll do?" she thought, as she dealt with one or two strands of tawny coloured hair, which were still inclined to be rebellious.

"I wonder if I'll meet anyone who remembers me?" she thought, as she left the room.

Downstairs, the two old ladies were awaiting her in the hall. Miss Helen was full of good advice for the journey, whilst Miss Annie dangled a packet of sandwiches, "In case dear Mavis should need refreshment on the way."

"Thanks so much," said Mavis, as she took the little packet, the brown-paper covering of which was already grease-stained from the fat of the sandwiches.

"Don't fail to remember me to Mrs Devitt," urged Helen.

"I won't forget," said Mavis.

"I put salt and mustard in the sandwiches," remarked Annie.

"Thanks so much," cried Mavis, as she opened the front door.

"And don't forget to be sure and travel in a compartment reserved for ladies," quavered Helen.

"I won't forget; wish me luck," answered Mavis.

"We do; good-bye," said the two old ladies together.

Directly the door was closed, Miss Annie, followed at a distance by Miss Helen, hurried into the schoolroom, where, pulling aside the Venetian blind of the front window, they watched the girl's trim figure walk down the street. The two old ladies were really very fond of her and not a little proud of her appearance.

"She has deportment," remarked Helen, as Mavis disappeared from their ken.

"Scarcely that--distinction is more the word," corrected Annie.

"I fear for her in the great world," declared Helen with trembling lips; "they say that good looks are a girl's worst enemy."

"But Mavis has profited by the example of our lives, Helen."

"There is much in that, Annie. Also, she should have derived much benefit from being, in school hours, and often out of them, in an atmosphere influenced by the writings of the late Mr Ruskin."

With these consolations, the two old ladies toiled upstairs, and set about packing for a fortnight's stay they proposed making with an old friend at Worthing, for which place they proposed starting in two days'

time.

Meanwhile, the subject of their thoughts was walking to Addison Road Station, happily ignorant of the old ladies' fears concerning the perils of her path. To look at her, she seemed the least likely girl in London who was about to take a journey on the chance of obtaining a much-needed engagement. Her glowing eyes, flushed cheeks, and light step were eloquent of a joyousness not usually a.s.sociated with an all but penniless girl on the look-out for something to do. Her clothes, also, supported the impression that she was a young woman well removed from likelihood of want. She was obliged to be careful with the few pounds that she earned at Brandenburg College: being of an open-handed disposition, this necessity for economy irked her; but however much she stinted her inclinations in other directions, she was determined, as are so many other young women who are thrown on their own resources, to have one good turn-out in which to make a brave show to the world. Not that Mavis spent her money, shop-girl fas.h.i.+on, in buying cheap flummery which was, at best, a poor and easily recognisable imitation of the real thing; her purchases were of the kind that any young gentlewoman, who was not compelled to take thought for the morrow, might becomingly wear. As she walked, most of the men she met looked at her admiringly; some turned to glance at her figure; one or two retraced their steps and would have overtaken her, had she not walked purposefully forward.

She was so used to these tributes to her attractiveness, that she did not give them heed. She could not help noticing one man; he glanced at her and seemed as if he were about to raise his hat; when she looked at him to see if she knew him, she saw that he was distinguished looking, but a stranger. She hurried on; presently, she went into a draper's shop, where she bought a pair of gloves, but, when she came out, the good-looking stranger was staring woodenly at the window. She hastened forward; turning a corner, she slipped into a tobacconist's and newsagent's, where she bought a packet of her favourite cigarettes, together with a box of matches. When she got to the door, her good-looking admirer was entering the shop. He made way for her, and, raising his hat, was about to speak: she walked quickly away and was not troubled with him any more. When she got to Paddington, she disobeyed Miss Helen's injunctions to travel in a compartment reserved for ladies, but went into an ordinary carriage, which, by the connivance of the guard, she had to herself. When the train left Paddington, she put her feet on the cus.h.i.+ons of the opposite seat, with a fine disregard of railway bye-laws, and lit a cigarette.

It was, perhaps, inevitable that the girl's thoughts should incline to the time and the very different circ.u.mstances in which she had last journeyed to Melkbridge. This was nine years ago, when she had come home for the holidays from Eastbourne, where she had been to school.

Then, she had had but one care in the world, this on account of a jaundiced pony to which she was immoderately attached. Then she suffered her mind to dwell on the unrestrained grief with which she had greeted her favourite's decease; as she did so, half-forgotten fares, scenes, memories flitted across her mind. Foremost amongst these was her father's face--dignified, loving, kind. Whenever she thought of him, as now, she best remembered him as he looked when he told her how she should try to restrain her grief at the loss of her pet, as her distress gave him pain. She had then been a person of consequence in her little world, she being her father's only child; she had been made much of by friends and acquaintances, amongst whom, so far as she could recollect, no member of the Devitt family was numbered. Perhaps, she thought, they have lately come to Melkbridge. Then aspects of the old home pa.s.sed through her mind. The room in which she used to sleep; the oak-panelled dining-room; the garden, which was all her very own, pa.s.sed in rapid review; then, the faces of playmates and sweethearts, for she had had admirers at that early age. There was Charlie Perigal, the boy with the steely blue eyes and the pretty curls, with whom she had quarrelled on the ground that he was in the habit of catching birds in nasty little brick traps; also, because, when taxed with this offence, he had defended his conduct and, a few moments later, had attempted to stone a frog in her highly indignant presence.

Then there was Archie Windebank, whose father had the next place to theirs; he was a fair, solemn boy, who treated her with an immense deference; he used to blush when she asked him to join her in play. The day before she had left for school, he had confessed his devotion in broken accents; she had thought of him for quite a week after she had left home. How absurd and trivial it all seemed, now that she was to face the stern realities of life!

The next thing she recalled was the news of her father's ruin. This calamity was more conveyed to her by the changed look in his face, when she next saw him, than by anything else.

She had been, at once, taken away from the expensive school at which she was being educated and had been sent to Brandenburg College, then languis.h.i.+ng in Hammersmith Terrace, while her father went to live at Dinan, in Brittany, where he might save money in order to make some sort of a start, which might ultimately mean a provision for his daughter.

Next, she remembered--this she would never forget--the terrible day on which Miss Helen Mee had called her into the study to tell her that she would never again see her dear father in this world. Tears came to Mavis's eyes whenever she thought of it. Orphaned, friendless, with no one to give her the affection for which her lonely soul craved, Mavis had stayed on at Brandenburg College, where the little her father had left sufficed to pay for her board and schooling. This sum lasted till she was sixteen, when, having pa.s.sed one or two trumpery examinations, she was taken on the staff of the college. The last few months, Mavis's eyes had been opened to the straitened circ.u.mstances in which her employers lived; she had lately realised that she owed her bread and b.u.t.ter more to the kindness of the Miss Mees, than to the fact of her parts as a teacher being in request at the school. She informed the kind ladies that she was going to seek her bread elsewhere; upon their offering the mildest of protests, she had made every effort to translate her intentions into performance.

This was by no means an easy matter for a comparatively friendless girl, as Mavis soon discovered. Her numerous applications had, so far, only resulted in an expenditure of stationery and postage stamps. Then, Miss Annie Mee kindly volunteered to write to the more prosperously circ.u.mstanced of the few one-time pupils with whom she had kept up something of a correspondence. Those who replied offered no suggestion of help, with the exception of Mrs Devitt. So much for the past: the future stretched, an unexplored country, before her, which, to one of her sanguine disposition, seemed to offer boundless opportunities of happiness. It appeared a strange conjunction of circ.u.mstances that she should have been sent for by a person living in her native place. It seemed fortuitous to Mavis that she should earn her bread in a neighbourhood where she would be known, if only because of the high reputation which her dear father had enjoyed. It all seemed as if it had been arranged like something out of a book. Amelia's words, referring to the certainty of her marrying, came into her mind; she tried to dismiss them, but without success. Then, her thoughts flew back to Charlie Perigal and Archie Windebank, youthful admirers, rivals for her favours. She wondered what had become of them; if she should see them again: a thousand things in which she allowed her imagination to wing itself in sentimental flight.

She was of an ardent temperament; men attracted her, although, since she had been grown up, she had never exchanged anything that could be construed into a love pa.s.sage with a member of the opposite s.e.x, opportunities for meeting those whom she considered her equals being wanting in her dull round of daily teaching. Sometimes, a face she had seen in the street, or a character she encountered in a book attracted her, when she would think of her hero, allowing her mind to place him in tender situations with herself, for the few hours her infatuation lasted, showing her to be of an impressionable and romantic disposition. Although she often felt her loneliness, and the consequent need of human companions.h.i.+p, her pride would never suffer her to take advantage of the innumerable facilities which the streets of London offer a comely girl to make chance friends.h.i.+ps, facilities which, for thousands of friendless young women in big towns, are their only chance for meeting the male of their species.

Mavis's pride was not of the kind with which providence endows millions of foolish people, apparently by way of preventing them from realising their insignificance, or, at the worst, making their smallness tolerable. It arose from knowledge of the great and inexhaustible treasure of love which was hers to bestow; so convinced was she of the value of this wealth, that she guarded it jealously, not permitting it to suffer taint or deterioration from commerce with those who, if only from curiosity, might strive to examine her riches.

She feared with a grave dread the giving of the contents of this treasure house, knowing full well that, if she gave at all, she would bestow with a lavish hand, believing the priceless riches of her love to be but a humble offering upon the shrine of the loved one.

For all this consciousness that she would be as wax in the hands of the man she would some day love, she had much of a conviction that, somehow, things would come right.

Beyond thanking the Almighty for the beauties of nature, sunlight, and the happiness that danced in her veins, she did not bother herself overmuch with public religious observances. She had a fixed idea that, if she did her duty in life, and tried to help others to the best of her small ability, G.o.d would, in some measure, reward her very much as her dear father would have done, if he had been spared; also, that, if she did ill, she would offend Him and might be visited with some sign of His displeasure, just as her own father might have done if he had been still on earth to advise and protect her.

Then, all such thoughts faded from her mind; she looked out of the carriage window as the train rushed through Didcot Junction. She felt hungry after the meagre breakfast she had made; she remembered the sandwiches, and, untying the greasy little parcel, was glad to eat them. When she had finished the sandwiches, she lit another cigarette; after smoking this, she closed her eyes the better to reflect.

Then she remembered nothing till the calling of "Melkbridge!"

"Melkbridge!" seemed to suffuse her senses. She awoke with a start, to find that she had reached her destination.

CHAPTER THREE

FRIENDS IN NEED

Mavis scrambled out of the train, just in time to prevent herself from being carried on to the next stopping--place. She smoothed her ruffled plumage and looked about her. She found the station much smaller than she had believed it to be; she hardly remembered any of its features, till the scent of the stocks planted in the station-master's garden a.s.sisted her memory. She gave up her ticket, and looked about her, thinking that very likely she would be met, if not by a member of the Devitt family, by some conveyance; but, beyond the station 'bus and two or three farmers' gigs, there was nothing in the nature of cart or carriage. She asked the hobbledehoy, who took her ticket, where Mrs Devitt lived, at which the youth looked at her in a manner that evidently questioned her sanity at being ignorant of such an important person's whereabouts. Mavis repeated her question more sharply than before. The ticket-collector looked at her open--mouthed, glanced up the road and then again to Mavis, before saying:

"Here her be."

"Mrs Devitt?"

"Noa. Her."

"The housekeeper?"

"Noa. The trap. Mebbe your eyes hain't so 'peart' as mine."

The grating of wheels called her attention to the fact that a smart, yellow-wheeled dogcart had been driven into the station yard by a man in livery.

"Be you Miss Keeves, miss?" asked the servant.

"Yes."

"Then you're for Melkbridge House. Please get in, miss."