The little girl Rachel at the age of six was able to take interest in
everything that happened, and to be a real companion who loved to help
her mother at any important task. Thus one winter evening between tea
and supper, when Mavis was most importantly engaged, she sat up late
by special license and gave her company and aid in the little room
behind the kitchen.
"Now, see if you can find the blotting-paper over there on daddy's
desk. Quietly, my darling. Very quietly--because we mustn't wake
Billy."
Billy, the little boy, was asleep in his cradle, near, but not too
near, the cheerful fire; a bluish flicker that reminded one of the
frost out of doors showed intermittently among the yellow and red
flames; the wick of the lamp on the round table burned clearly; and in
the mingling lamplight and firelight the whole room looked
delightfully cozy and homelike. Mavis, with a body just pleasantly
tired and a mind still comfortably active, paused before starting her
labor in order luxuriously to feel the peaceful charm that was being
shed forth by all her surroundings.
More and more the very heart of their home life seemed to locate
itself in this room, and so every day additional memories and
associations wove themselves about the objects it contained. Rachel,
young as she was, showed a marked predilection for it, loving it
better than all other rooms. From the dawn of intelligence she had
been fascinated by the two guns and the brass powder-flasks that hung
high over the chimney-place; her first climbings and tumblings had
been performed on the three steps that led to the kitchen; and she had
addled her tender brains, as well as inflamed the natural greed which
is so pardonable in infants, by what was to her a sort of differential
calculus before she learned to discriminate nicely among the various
jams kept by Mummy in the big cupboard.
Nearly all the furniture, as well as the two guns, had belonged to Mr.
Bates. It was solid, and very old--a tall-boy with a drawer that,
opening out, made a writing-desk; a bureau with a latticed glass
front; three chairs of the Chippendale farmhouse order; and one vast
chair, covered with leather and adorned with nails, that had probably
been dozed in by the hall-porter of some great mansion more than a
century ago. Here and there Mavis had of course dabbed her small
prettinesses--blue china and a clock on the mantel-shelf, colored
cushions, photographs of the children, views of Rodchurch High Street,
the Chase, Rodhaven Pier; and the old and the new, the useful and the
ornamental, alike whispered to her of fulfilled desires, gratified
fancies, and William Dale.
It was her husband's room. Perhaps that formed the real source of all
its charms, the essence or base of attraction that lay deep beneath
visual presentations of chairs and fire-gleamings, or associations of
ideas, or memories of past happiness. Those were his books, behind the
latticed glass--the _Elocution Manual_, the _Elements of Rhetoric_,
the ten-volumed _People's Encyclopedia_, that he had read, and still
read so assiduously. It was here that he ate, drank, and mused. Here
he did all of his work that wasn't real office work. Here he received
such visitors as head coachmen, stud-grooms, and the huntsmen.
In the cupboard with the jam-pots, there were two or three boxes of
cigars, the famous sloe gin, and other liqueurs, for the entertainment
of such highly esteemed visitors; and so long as one of them occupied
the colossal armchair, her husband was quite a different Dale. He was
then such a much better listener than usual, so quick to see a joke
and so easy to be tickled by it, so debonair that he would swallow
almost insulting criticism of his favorite politicians. As she thought
of these things her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted mirthfully.
She never asked any questions as to Dale's more secret methods of
dealing with customers' servants. Obviously he got on well with them;
and one might be quite certain that he did not offer any material
compliments that were either traditionally illegitimate or open in the
smallest degree to a suspicion of corrupt purpose.
And she thought admiringly that her man was really a very wonderful
man. Though so candid and straight, he could be grandly silent; he
told his womankind all that he considered it good for them to know,
and the rest he kept to himself; he had that quality of rulership
without which manhood always seems deficient.
"Mummy," said Rachel, "I do believe Mary is reading aloud."
"Is she, darling? Yes, I think she is."
Through the kitchen door one could hear a monotonous murmur.
"D'you think she's reading fairy tales?"
"Perhaps. Would you like to listen to her?"
"Oh, no. I'd sooner stay and help you, Mummy."
"Then so you shall, my angel; and I thank you for preferring my
company."
Mavis, with the little girl at her knee, got to work. She had
purchased a large scrap-album, and was now to begin putting in her
scraps. For a long time she had collected interesting extracts from
the newspapers, more especially portions of old numbers of the
_Rodhaven Courier_ which contained her husband's name.
"Here, Rachel, we'll commence with this;" and she started the book
with a long account of the ceremonial opening of the Barradine
Orphanage. The report of a speech by "Mr. Dale of Vine-Pits Farm" at a
political meeting was the second item, and other gems followed fast.
Rachel assisted from time to time, by twice upsetting the paste pot,
tearing a good many cuttings, and finally by tilting the heavy album
off Mummy's lap to the floor.
But Mavis thought all these actions rather spirited and charming than
maladroit and annoying. They proved that Rachel was trying hard to be
of use, and her too rapid and abrupt gestures were a pleasing evidence
that the little creature possessed a vivacious and not a sluggish
disposition. However, the crash of the album on the floor had awakened
Billy, who was now crying lustily; and Rachel's license having long
since expired, Mavis decided to send both her treasures to bed.
Rachel resisted the edict, and, presently conducted up-stairs by Mary,
bellowed more loudly than her brother; indeed for a little while the
house was filled with the harsh sound of squalling. Yet this noise,
though distressing, was as musical as harps and lutes to the mother's
ears; and while old Mrs. Goudie in the kitchen was saying: "They
children want a smart popping to learn them on'y to squawk when
there's reason for squawking," Mavis was thinking: "Poor darlings, I'd
go up and kiss them again, if Mary didn't always quiet them down
quicker than I can."
Alone with her newspaper snippets, Mavis did more reading than
pasting. "Heroic Rescue at Otterford Mill"--that was the description
of how Will saved good-for-nothing Abraham Veale. She knew it almost
by heart, but she had to read it again. "Brave Deed at Manninglea
Cross Station"--that was something that made her feel faint every time
she thought of it, and she trembled now as she read in the snippet of
how there had been a frightened dog on the line between the platforms,
and how Will had jumped down in front of the approaching train and
whisked the dog out of danger just in time.
She folded her hands, puckered her forehead, and passed into a reverie
about him. Combining with her intense admiration, there was a great
horror of all this reckless courage. He would not have been so
foolhardy years ago. It was against the principles that he had once
laid down as limiting the risks that a brave man may run. It indicated
a change in him, a change that she had never pondered on till now. She
thought of him fighting the wind on top of their rick, and of several
other incidents unchronicled by the press--of his going with the
police at Old Manninglea when there was the bad riot, of his joining
the Crown keepers when they went out to catch the poachers, of his
wild performance when Mr. Creech's bull got loose. Goring bulls,
bludgeoning men, tempest and flood--wherever and whatever the danger,
he went straight to it. But it was not fair to her and the babes. His
thrice precious life! And she grew cold as she thought that an
accident--like a curtain descending when a stage play is over--might
some day end all her joy.
Then she thought once more of that dark period of their dual
existence; and it was the last time that she was ever capable of
thinking of it seriously and with any real concentration. Had that
trouble left any permanent mark on him? Her own suffering had left no
mark on her. It was gone so entirely that, as well as seeming
incredible, it seemed badly invented, silly, preposterous. All that
remained to her was just this one firm memory, that, strange or not,
there had truly once been a time when his arms were not her shelter,
and she dared not look into his face.
But he was different from her; with a vastly more capacious brain, in
which there was such ample room that perhaps the present did not even
impinge upon the past, much less drive it out altogether. She who in
the beginning had tacitly agreed with those who considered her the
obvious superior now felt humbly pleased in recognizing that he was of
grander, finer, and more delicate stuff than herself. And for the
first and last time she was assailed by a disturbing doubt. Was he
completely happy even now? He loved her, he loved his children, he
loved his successful industry; yet sometimes when she found him alone
his face was almost as somber as it had ever been.
And those bad dreams of his still continued. At first, when things
were all in jeopardy, it had seemed not unnatural that the troubles of
the day should break his rest at night; but why should he dream now,
when he was prosperous and without a single anxiety to distress him?
Did he in sleep go back to that old storm of anger, jealousy, and
grief about which he never thought during his waking hours?
And again Mavis was actuated all unconsciously by the elemental
selfishness that mingles with our joy. When we are happy we want
others to be happy too, we can not brook their not being so; even
transient darkness in those we love seems inimical to the light that
is burning so cheerfully in ourselves. Mavis ceased to trouble herself
with questions, and forgot that they remained unanswered.
When Dale came in she was, however, more than ordinarily sweet to him,
waiting on him, bringing the supper dishes, not sitting down until he
was served, and watching him while he ate. She told him that she had
been reading about the dog on the railway line, and that he was not to
do such things. If he ever again felt such a wild impulse, he was to
stifle it immediately by remembering his wife and bairns.
"D'you understand, Will? We won't have it--and we all three think you
ought to be ashamed of yourself for not knowing better. You're not a
boy."
"No," he said, "I shall be forty-two next year. Look here," and he
pointed to his temples. "Look at my gray hair."
"I can't see it."
"But it's there, my dear, all the same. I am beginning to turn toward
the sear and yellow leaf, as Shakespeare puts it."
She admired the easy way in which he quoted Shakespeare, as if it was
the most natural thing in the world to do. Indeed, all through supper
she was admiring him. She thought how beautifully he spoke, expressing
himself so elegantly, and with tones in his voice that every day
seemed to sound a little more cultivated. At first after their arrival
at Vine-Pits, being plunged again into the midst of purely rustic
talk, he had fallen back in regard to his diction. Instinctively he
reverted to the dialect that had been his own, and that was being used
by everybody about him; but now one might say that he really had two
languages--his rough patter for the yard and the fields, and his
carefully-measured phrasing for the home, office, and upper circles.
She understood that his constant reading and his unflagging desire for
self-improvement were telling rapidly; and with a touch of sadness she
wondered if, passing on always, he would finally leave her quite
behind.
No, while life lasted, he would hold to her. He would never shake her
off now. Even if she were old and ugly, useless to him, a dead-weight
upon his ascending progress, he would be true to her now. Even if his
love died, the memory of it would keep him still hers. And she thought
of the pity in him, as well as the strength. The man who could not
resist the appeal of a poor little stray dog would not break faith
with the mother of his children; and she thought, "Yes, whatever I say
to him, I know really and truly that it was a nobler, better thing to
risk all than to allow even a dog to perish. And I love him for not
having hesitated then, even when I pray him not to do it again."
Looking at him, she saw the gray hair that she had just now denied;
and to her eyes these gray feathers at each side of the forehead not
only increased his dignity, but gave him a fresh charm. The gray hair
made him somehow more romantic. In her eyes his face was always
growing more beautiful, always refining itself, always losing
something that had been rather coarsely massive and gaining something
that was new, spiritualized, and subtle.
"What are you examining me like that for, Mav? A penny for your
thoughts."
"Shall I tell you truly?" and she laughed. "I was thinking if your
looks continue to improve at this rate all the girls will get falling
in love with you."
"Go along with you."