Sparrows Part 71

"Beloved!"

"My own!"

"Are you ready to start?"

"I'll see if they've packed the luncheon."

"One moment. Where are we going today?"

"Llansallas; three miles from here."

"What's it like?" she asked.

"The loveliest place they knew of."

"How wonderful! And we'll have the whole day there?"

"Only you and I," he said softly.

"Be quick. Don't lose a moment, sweetheart. I dislike being alone--now."

"Why?" he asked.

Mavis dropped her eyes.

"Adorable, modest little Mavis," he laughed. "I'll see about the grub."

"You've forgotten something," she pouted, as he moved towards the door.

"Your kiss!"

"Our kiss."

"I hadn't really. I wanted to see if you'd remember."

"As if I'd forget," she protested.

Their lips met; not once, but many times; they seemed reluctant to part.

Mavis was alone. She had spoken truly when she had hinted how she was averse to the company of her own thoughts. It was then that clouds seemed disposed to threaten the sun of her joy.

She went to the window of the hotel sitting-room, which overlooked the narrow road leading to Polperro village; beyond the cottages opposite was bare rock, which had been blasted to find room for stone habitations; above the naked stone was blue sky. Mavis tried to think about the sky in order to exclude a certain weighty matter from her mind. She had been five days in Cornwall, four of which had been spent with Perigal in Polperro. Mavis did her best to concentrate her thoughts upon the cerulean hue of the heavens; she wondered why it could not faithfully be matched in dress material owing to the peculiar quality of light in the colour of the sky. It was just another such a blue, so she thought, as she had seen on the morning of what was to have been her wedding day, when, heavy-eyed and life-weary, she had crept to the window of her room; then the gladness of the day appeared so indifferent to her sorrow that she had raged hopelessly, helplessly, at the ill fortune which had over-ridden her. This paroxysm of rebellion had left her physically inert, but mentally active. She had surveyed her life calmly, dispa.s.sionately, when it seemed that she had been deprived by cruel circ.u.mstance of parents, social position, friends, money, love: everything which had been her due. She had been convinced that she was treated with brutal injustice. The joyous singing of birds outside her window, the majestic climbing of the sun in the heavens maddened her. Her spirit had been aroused: she had wondered what she could do to defy fate to do its worst. The morning's post had brought a letter from Perigal, the envelope of which bore the Polperro postmark. This had told her that the despairing writer had gone to the place of their prospective honeymoon, where the contrast between his present agony of soul and the promised happiness, on which he had set so much store, was such, that if he did not immediately hear from Mavis, he was in danger of taking his life. There had been more to the same effect. Immediately, all thought of self had been forgotten; she had hurried out to send a telegram to Perigal, telling him to expect a surprise to-day.

She had confided her dear Jill to Mrs Farthing's care. After telling her wondering landlady that she would not be away for more than one night, she had hurried (with a few belongings) to the station, ultimately to get out at Liskeard, where she had to take the local railway to Looe, from which an omnibus would carry her to Polperro.

Perigal had met her train at Liskeard, her telegram having led him to expect her.

He was greatly excited and made such ardent love to her that, upon her arrival at Looe, she already regretted her journey and had purposed returning by the next train. But there was nothing to take her back before morning; against her wishes, she had been constrained to spend the night at Looe.

Here Perigal insisted on staying also.

Mavis, as she looked back on the last four days, and all that had happened therein, could not blame herself. She now loved Perigal more than she had ever believed it possible for woman to love man; she belonged to him body and soul; she was all love, consequently she had no room in her being for vain regrets.

When she was alone, as now, her pride was irked at the fact of her not being a bride; she believed that the tenacious way in which she had husbanded her affections gave her every right to expect the privilege of wifehood. It was, also, then she realised that her very life depended upon the continuance of Perigal's love: she had no doubt that he would marry her with as little delay as possible. Otherwise, the past was forgotten, the future ignored: she wholly surrendered herself to her new-born ecstasy begotten of her surrender. He was the world, and nothing else mattered. So far as she was concerned, their love for each other was the beginning, be-all, and end of earthly things.

It was a matter of complete indifference to her that she was living at Polperro with her lover as Mrs and Mr Ward.

It may, perhaps, be wondered why a girl of Mavis's moral susceptibilities could be so indifferent to her habit of thought as to find such unalloyed rapture in a union unsanctified by church and unprotected by law. The truth is that women, as a s.e.x, quickly accommodate themselves to such a situation as that in which Mavis found herself, and very rarely suffer the pangs of remorse which are placed to their credit by imaginative purists. The explanation may be that women live closer to nature than men; that they set more store on sentiment and pa.s.sion than those of the opposite s.e.x; also, perhaps, because they instinctively rebel against a male-manufactured morality to which women have to subscribe, largely for the benefit of men whose observance of moral law is more "honoured in the breach than in the observance." Indeed, it may be regarded as axiomatic that with nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of a thousand the act of bestowing themselves on the man they love is looked upon by them as the merest incident in their lives. The thousandth, the exception, to whom, like Mavis, such a surrender is a matter of supreme moment, only suffers tortures of remorse when threatened by the loss of the man's love or by other inconvenient but natural consequences of s.e.xual temerity.

Mavis was recalled to the immediate present by an arm stealing about her neck; she thrilled at the touch of the man who had entered the room un.o.bserved; her lips sought his.

"Ready, darling?" he asked.

"If you are."

She caught up her sunbonnet, which had been thrown on one side, to hand it to him.

"You put it on me," she said.

When he had expended several unnecessary moments in adjusting the bonnet, they made as if they would start.

"Got everything you want?" he asked, looking round the room.

"I think so. Take my sunshade."

"Right o'."

"My gloves."

"I've got 'em."

"My handkerchief."

"I've got it."

"Now kiss me."

His all too eager lips met on hers.

"Now we can start," she remarked.

She stood on the steps of the little hotel, while Perigal grasped a luncheon basket.

"Quick march!" he cried.

"Wait one moment. I so love the sunlight," she replied.

"Little pagan!"