Sparrows Part 44

"Give it up."

"My name. I told you a lie about it."

"Is that all?"

"Isn't that enough? I am Mavis Keeves. I am--"

"What?" he interrupted.

"I didn't like to confess it before. Don't, please don't think very badly of me."

"YOU--little Mavis after all?"

"Yes," she answered softly.

"What wonderful, wonderful luck! I can't believe it even now. You little Mavis! How did it all come about?"

"It's simple enough."

"Simple!" He laughed excitedly. "You call it simple?"

"Let me tell you. I was very miserable to-day and I prayed and--and--"

She could say no more; her overcharged feelings were such that they got the better of her self-control. Careless of what he might think, she leaned against him, as if for protection--leaned against him to weep bitter-sweet, unrestrained tears upon his shoulder.

"Poor little girl! Poor little Mavis!" he murmured.

The remark reinforced her tears.

The fog again enveloped them and seemed to cut them off from the observation of pa.s.sers-by. It was as if their tenderness for each other had found an oasis in the wilderness of London's heartlessness.

Mavis wept unrestrainedly, contentedly, as if secure or sympathetic understanding. Although he spoke, she gave small heed to his words. She revelled in the unaccustomed luxury of friends.h.i.+p expressed by a man for whom she, already, had something in the nature of an affectionate regard.

Presently, when she became calmer, she gave more attention to what he was saying.

"You must give me your address and I'll write to my people at once," he said. "The mater will be no end of glad to see you again, and you must come down. I'll be down often and--and--Oh, little Mavis, won't it be wonderful, if all our lives we were to bless the day we met again?"

Although her sobs had ceased, she did not reply.

Two obsessions occupied her thoughts: one was an instinct of abas.e.m.e.nt before the man who had such a tender concern for her future; the other, a fierce pride, which revolted at the thought of her being under a possibly lifelong obligation to the man with whom, in the far-off days of her childhood, she had been on terms of economic equality. He produced his handkerchief and gently wiped her eyes. She did not know whether to be grateful for, or enraged at, this attention. The two conflicting emotions surged within her; their impulsion was a cause which threatened to exert a common effect, inasmuch as they urged her to leave Windebank.

This sentiment was strengthened by the reflection that she was unworthy of his regard. She had, of set purpose, lied to him, denied that she was the friend of his early youth. True, he had previously insulted her, but, considering the circ.u.mstances, he had every excuse for his behaviour. He certainly led a fast life, but, if anything, Mavis the more admired him for this symptom of virility; she also dimly believed that such conduct qualified him to win a wife who, in every respect, was above reproach. She was poor and friendless, she again reflected.

Above all, she had lied to him. She was hopelessly unworthy of one who, in obedience to the sentimental whim she had inspired, seemed contemptuous of his future. She would be worse than she already was, if she countenanced a course of action full of such baleful possibilities for himself. Almost before she knew what she was doing, she kissed him lightly on the cheek, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the violets he was wearing in his coat, before slipping away, to lose herself in the fog.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A GOOD SAMARITAN

Mavis heard him calling her name, first one way, then another; once, he approached and came quite near her, but he changed his direction, to pa.s.s immediately out of her ken.

She then hurried in the direction of what she believed to be Hammersmith; she could not know for certain, as the fog increased in intensity every minute. Her mind was too confused to ask anyone if she were going the right way, even if she had cared to know, which, at present, she did not. She was seized with a pa.s.sion for movement, anything to distract her mind from the emotions possessing it. One moment, she blamed herself for having left Windebank as she had done; the next, she told herself and tried hard to believe that she had done the best conceivable thing under the circ.u.mstances.

She walked quickly, careless to where her footsteps led her, as if hurrying from, or to Windebank's side; she was not certain which she desired. She had walked for quite twenty minutes when she was brought up short by a blow on the forehead. Light flashed in her eyes; she put out her arms to save herself from a fall. She had walked into a tree, contact with which had bruised her face and torn skin from her forehead. Pain and dizziness brought her to the realisation of the fact that it was late, and that she was penniless; also, that she was unaware of her whereabouts. She resolved to get back to her lodging with as little delay as possible. She groped about, hoping to find someone who would tell her where she was and direct her to Kiva Street.

After some minutes, she all but walked into a policeman, who told her how she was near the King's Road, Chelsea, also how to get to her destination. She hastened on, doing her utmost to follow his directions. This was not easy, the fog and the pain in her head both confusing her steps. Once or twice, she was almost overcome by faintness; then, she was compelled to cling to railings for support until she had strength to continue her way.

There came a time when her legs refused to carry her further; her head throbbed violently; a dark veil seemed to gradually blot out things as she knew them. She remembered no more.

When next she became dimly conscious, she seemed to be in a rec.u.mbent position in a strange room, where she was watching the doings of a woman who was unknown to her.

When Mavis first set eyes on this person, she appeared to be a decent, comely, fair-haired, youngish woman, who was dressed in the becoming black of one who had recently emerged from the mourning of widowhood.

But as Mavis watched the woman, a startling transformation took place before her eyes. The woman began by removing her gloves and bonnet before a dressing gla.s.s, which was kept in position by a mangy hair brush thrust between the frame and its supports. Then, to the girl's wondering astonishment, the woman unpinned and took off her fair curls, revealing a mop of tangled, frowsy, colourless hair, which the wig had concealed. Next, she removed her sober, well-cut costume, also, her silk underskirt, to put on a much worn, greasy dressing-gown. Then, she pulled off her pretty shoes and silk stockings, to thrust her feet into worn slippers, through which her naked toes showed in more than one place.

Mavis rubbed her eyes; she expected every moment to find herself again in the street, clinging to the railings for support, at which moment of returning sense she would know that what she was now witnessing would prove to be an effect of her disordered imagination.

If what she saw were the result of a sick brain, it was a convincing, consistent picture which fascinated her attention.

The woman had taken up a not over-clean towel, to dip a corner of it in a jug upon the washstand before applying it to one side of her face.

Mavis suffered her eyes to leave the woman in order to wander round the room. She was lying on a sofa at the foot of an iron bed. That part of the wall nearest to her was filled by the fireplace, in which a cheerful fire was burning; it looked as if it had recently been made up. Upon the mantelshelf were faded photographs of common, self-conscious people, the tops of which all but touched a framed print of the late Mr Gladstone. In the complementary recess to the one in which the washstand stood, was a table littered with odds and ends of food, some of which were still wrapped in the paper in which they had come from the shop. A smoking oil lamp, of which the gla.s.s shade had disappeared, and which was now shaded with the lid of a cardboard shoe box, cast elongated shadows of the occupier of the room on walls and ceiling as she moved. The atmosphere of the room was heavy with the mingled smell of paraffin oil and fugginess.

"Where--where am I?" asked Mavis.

"You've come round, then?" said the woman, who had just cleansed one side of her face of artificial complexion.

"How did I get here?"

"I found you outside as I came 'ome. I couldn't very well leave you like that."

"You're very kind."

"'Elp that you may be 'elped is my motto. An' then you didn't smell of drink. I wouldn't 'ave took you in if you had. Girls who're 'on the game' who drink ought to know better, and don't deserve sympathy."

Mavis stared at her wide-eyed, striving to recalled where she had heard that expression before, also what it meant.

"You sit quiet, dear; you'll be better directly," said the woman. "I've got to wash this stuff off. Beastly nuisance, but, if you don't, it stains the sheets and pillers, as I daresay you know."

Had Mavis possessed sufficient strength she would have combated this suggestion; it was as much as she could do to concentrate her wandering attention on the doings of the woman who had played good Samaritan in her extremity.

Mavis saw her cleanse the other side of her face and remove two false teeth from her mouth, actions which completed the transformation from that of a comely, interesting-looking, youngish woman to that of an elderly, extremely commonplace person with foxy, s.h.i.+fty eyes.

"Now I'm 'done.' I never feel reely at home till I get into my s.h.i.+rt sleeves, as you might say," remarked the woman.

Mavis sat up.

"'Ave a drink?" asked her benefactor.