Days passed swiftly for Mavis; weeks glided into months, months into
seasons. When the anniversary of the day on which she had commenced
work at the boot factory came round, she could not believe that she had
been at Melkbridge a year. When she had padded the streets of London in
quest of work, she had many times told herself that she had only to
secure a weekly wage in order to be happy. Now this desire was
attained, she found (as who has not?) that satisfaction in one
direction breeds hunger in another. Although her twenty shillings a
week had been increased to twenty-five, and she considerably augmented
this sum by teaching music to pupils to whom Mr Medlicott recommended
her, Mavis was by no means content. Her regular hours, the nature of
her employment, the absence of friendship in the warm-hearted girl's
life, all irked her; she fearfully wondered if she were doomed to spend
her remaining days in commencing work at nine-thirty and leaving off at
half-past four upon five days of the week, and one on Saturdays. If the
fifty-two weeks spent in Melkbridge had not brought contentment to her
mind, the good air of the place, together with Mrs Farthing's wholesome
food, had wrought a wondrous change in her appearance. The tired girl
with the hunted look in her eyes had developed into an amazingly
attractive young woman. Her fair skin had taken on a dazzling
whiteness; her hair was richer and more luxuriant than of yore; but it
was her eyes in which the chief alteration had occurred. These now held
an unfathomable depth of tenderness, together with a roguish fear that
the former alluring quality might be discovered. If her figure were not
as unduly stout as the skinny virgins of Melkbridge declared it to be,
there was no denying the rude health apparent in the girl's face and
carriage.
So far as her colleagues at the boot factory were concerned, Miss
Toombs hardly took any notice of her, whilst Miss Hunter gave her the
impression of being extremely insincere, all her words and actions
being the result of pose rather than of conviction.
The only people Mavis was at all friendly with were Mr and Mrs
Medlicott, whom she often visited on Sunday evenings, when they would
all sing Moody and Sankey's hymns to the accompaniment of the cabinet
piano.
When she had been some months at Melkbridge, a new interest had come
into her life. One day, Mr Devitt, who, with his family, had showed no
disposition to cultivate Mavis's acquaintance, sent for her and asked
her if she would like to have a dog.
"Nothing I should like better," she replied.
"There's only one objection."
"One can't look gift dogs in the mouth."
"It's a she, a lady dog: there's risk of an occasional family."
"I'll gladly take that."
"She's rather a dear, but she's lately had pups, and some people might
object to her appearance."
"I know I should love her."
"She's a cocker spaniel--her name's Jill. She belongs to my boy,
Harold. But as he's away--"
"Then we've already met. I saw her the day I came down to see you from
London. You're right--she is a dear."
"My boy, who is still away for his health--"
"I am sorry," Mavis interrupted.
"Thanks. He wrote to say that, as we--some of us--appeared to find her
a nuisance, we'd better try and find her a happy home."
"I'm sure she'd be happy with me."
"What about your landlady?"
"I'd forgotten her. I must ask."
"If she doesn't mind, Jill's licence is paid till the end of the year."
"I do hope Mrs Farthing won't mind," declared Mavis hopefully.
Rather to her surprise, Mrs Farthing made little objection to Jill's
coming to live with Mavis, her surrender being partly due to the fact
of the girl's winsome presence having softened the elder woman's heart,
but largely because it had got about Melkbridge that Mavis came of a
local county family.
Mr Devitt, being told of this decision, sent Jill up in charge of a
maid, who asked that its collar and chain might be returned to
Melkbridge House.
Mavis took Jill in her arms, when it would seem by the dog's
demonstrations of delight as if it had long been a stranger to
affectionate regard.
"Be you agoing to keep un?" asked the maid.
"Why not?"
"I shouldn't. Hev a good look at un."
Mavis looked, to see that Jill's comparatively recent litter had been
responsible for the temporary abnormal development of the parts of her
body by which she had nourished her young.
"It's why Mrs Devitt wouldn't have un in the house. I don't blame her.
I call it disgusting," continued this chip of Puritanical stock.
"I see nothing to object to. It's nature," retorted Mavis, who inwardly
smiled to see how the Puritanical-minded young woman, who had looked
askance at Jill's appearance, did not hesitate to grab the girl's
proffered shilling.
Jill and Mavis were at once fast friends. The dog accompanied her
mistress in all her rambles, where its presence routed the forces of
loneliness which were beginning to lay siege to the girl's peace of
mind. Jill slept on Mavis's bed, pined when she left her in the
morning, madly rejoiced at her mistress' return from work, when the
vigorous wagging of Jill's tail, together with the barks of delight
which greeted Mavis, gave her a suggestion of home which she had never
experienced since the days of Brandenburg College.
This year, spring came early, like a beautiful mistress who joins an
enraptured lover before he dares to hope for her coming. With the
lengthening days Mavis knew an increasing distress of mind. She became
unsettled: outbreaks of violent energy alternated with spells of
laziness, which, more often than not, were accompanied by headaches.
Books of historical memoirs, hitherto an unfailing solace, failed to
interest her. Love stories she would avoid for weeks on end, as if they
were the plague, suddenly to fall to and devour them with avidity, when
the inclination seized her.
It was not yet warm enough for her to sit in her nook; it was doubtful
if she would have done so if the weather had been sufficiently
propitious. The reason for her present indifference to the spot, which
she had always loved, was that it bordered the Avon, and just now the
river was swollen and turbulent with spring rains. Her soul ached for
companionship with something stable, soothing, still. Perhaps this was
why she preferred to walk by the canal that touched Melkbridge in its
quiet and lonely course. The canal had a beauty of its own in Mavis'
eyes: its red-brick, ivy-grown bridges, its wooden drawbridges, deep
locks, and deserted grass-grown tow-paths were all eloquent of the
waterways having arrived at a certain philosophic repose, which was in
striking contrast to the girl's unquiet thoughts. Soon, as if in
celebration of spring, both banks were gay with borders of great yellow
butter-cups. It seemed to Mavis as if they decorated the tables of a
feast to which she had not been asked. The great awakening in the heart
of life proceeded exquisitely, inevitably. Mavis believed that, as the
sun's rays had no real meaning for her, it was only by some cruel
mischance that she was enabled to bear witness to their daily
increasing warmth. She would tell the troubles of her disturbed mind to
Jill, who tried to show her sympathy by licking her face. At night, she
would often waken out of a deep sleep with a start, when her eagerly
outstretched arms would grasp a vast emptiness. The sight of lovers
walking together would bring hot blood to her head; the proximity of a
young man would make her heart beat strangely.
She frequently found herself wondering why intercourse between man and
woman was hedged about by innumerable restrictions. It seemed to her
that what people called the conventionalities were a device of the
far-seeing eye of the Most High to regulate the relations of His
children. If any of these appeared to escape the ends for which they
were made, she put down the failure to the imperfect construction of
the human organism, the constant aberrations of which necessitated the
restraints imposed by religion and morality.
Mavis soon descended from the general to the particular. Her mind
continually dwelt on every incident of her brief acquaintance with
Windebank: she found that it was as much as she could do to justify the
exigent scruples which had made her repel the man's approaches. One
day, the scales fell from her eyes. She had deserted the canal and was
sitting in a field, some two miles from the town, where the few trees
it contained were disposed as if they were continually setting to
partners, in some arboreous quadrille. The surrounding fields were
tipped at all angles, as if in petulant discontent of one-time
flatness. With an effort she could discern, Jill's tail wagging
delightedly from a hole in a ditch, where she was hunting a rabbit. The
voice, the sights, the sounds of nature, all served to obliterate the
effect of life, as she had, hitherto, regarded it, upon her processes
of thought. Archie Windebank's wealth, social position and career were
as nought to her; he appealed to her only as a man, and her conceivable
relationship to him was but as female to male.
All other considerations, which she had before believed of importance,
now seemed trivial and inept. She wondered how she could have been
blinded for so long. She bitterly reproached herself for her high-flown
scruples, which now savoured of unwholesome affectation; but for these,
she might not only have been a happy wife, but she might, also, have
proved the means of conferring happiness upon another, and he a dearly
loved one.
She called to Jill and sorrowfully went home. Three weeks later was
Whit Monday, a day which, being a holiday, she was able to devote to
her own uses. She had planned to walk to the village of Preen, an
ancient hamlet set upon a hill that overlooked Salisbury Plain, which
was distant some five miles from Melkbridge; but, at the last moment,
her distress of mind was such that she abandoned the excursion.
Lethargy had succeeded to her disturbed thoughts--lethargy that made
her look on life through grey spectacles. Instead of setting out for
Preen, she walked aimlessly about the town, accompanied by Jill.
Presently she went up Church Walk, at the top of which she saw that the
church door was open. She had a fancy for walking by the grave-stones,
so Mavis tied Jill up to the gate of the churchyard with the lead which
she usually carried.
As Mavis wandered among the moss-grown stones, which bore almost
undecipherable inscriptions, she wondered if those they covered had led
happy, contented lives, or if they were afflicted with unquiet
thoughts, unsatisfied longings, and dull despair, as she was. The
church was empty and cool; she walked inside, to sit in the first pew
she chanced upon. It was the first time that she had sat all alone in
the church; its venerable appearance now cried aloud for recognition
and appreciation. As if to accentuate its antiquity, some of the aisles
and walls bore the disfiguring evidences of an unfinished electric
light and electric organ-blowing installation, which was in the process
of being made, despite the protests of the more conservative among the
worshippers. She did not know whether to stay or to go; she seemed
incapable of making up her mind. Then, almost before she was aware of
it, the organ commenced to play softly, appealingly; very soon, the
fane was filled with majestic notes. Mavis was always acutely sensitive
to music. In a moment, her troubles were forgotten; she listened enrapt
to the soaring melody. The player was not the humdrum organist of the
church, neither did his music savour of the ecclesiastical inspiration
which makes its conventional appeal on Sundays and holy days. Instead,
it spoke to Mavis of the travail, the joy of being, the night,
sunlight, sea, air, the gay and grey pageant of life: the player
appeared to be moved by all these influences. Not only was he eloquent
of life, but he seemed to read and understand Mavis' soul and the
perplexities with which it was confronted. Her heart went out to this
sympathetic and intimate understanding of her needs; body and soul, she
surrendered herself to the musician's mood. Very soon, he was playing
upon her being as if she were but another instrument, of which he had
acquired the mastery. Her imagination, stirred to its depths, took
instant wing. It seemed as if the hand of time were put back for many
hundreds of years to a day in a remote century. The building, bare of
memorial inscriptions, was crowded with ecclesiastics, monks, nobles
and simple; she could see the gorgeous ceremonial incidental to the
occasion; the chanting of monks filled her ears; the rich scent of
incense lay heavy on the air; lights flickered on the altar. Night
came, when silence seemed to have forever enshrouded the world; many
nights, till one on which the moonlight shone upon the figure of a
young man keeping his vigil beside his armour and arms. Then, in a
moment, the church was filled with sunlight, and gay with garlands and
bright frocks. The knight and his bride stood before the altar, while
the world seemed to laugh for very joy. As the newly-made man and wife
left the church, old-world wedding music sounded strangely in Mavis'
ears. The best part of a year passed. A little group stood about the
font, where the life, that love had called into being, was purged of
taint of sin by holy church.
Next, martial music rent the air; a venerable ecclesiastic blessed the
arms and aims of a goodly company of stout-hearted men. When the echoes
of the martial music had died away, the fane was deserted, save for one
lone woman, who offered up continual supplication for her absent lord.
Cries and lamentations fell on Mavis' ears: to the music of a military
march, the brave young knight was borne to burial. Soon, the moonlight
fell upon the church's first monument, beside which the tearless and
kneeling figure of a woman often prayed. It was not so very long before
the widow was carried to rest beside her husband; it seemed but little
longer when the offspring of her love stood before the altar with the
bride of his choice.
The foregoing scenes were many times repeated, as, thus, life moved
down the centuries, differing not at all but for changes in personality
and dress. The church looked on, unmoved, unaltered, save for signs of
age and an increasing number of memorials raised to the dead. The
procession of life began by fascinating and ended by paining Mavis.
It was as if she were the spectator of a crowd in which her heart ached
to mix, despite the distressing penalties of pain to which those she
envied were, at all times, subject. It was as if she were forever cut
off from the pleasures of her kind, to gain which the risk of mental
and physical torments was well worth the running. It seemed as if her
youth, sweetness, and immense capacity for loving, were doomed to
wither unsought, unappreciated in the desert of her destiny. As if to
save herself from such an unkind fate, she involuntarily fell on her
knees; but she did not pray, indeed, she made no attempt to formulate
prayer in her heart. Perhaps she thought that her dumb, bruised
loneliness was more eloquent than words. She remained on her knees for
quite a long time. When she got up, the music stopped. The contrast
between the sound and the succeeding silence was such that the latter
seemed to be more emphatic than the melody.
When she, presently, rose to go, she saw a man standing just behind her
in the aisle; he was elderly and homely-looking, with soft, far-away
eyes.
"Good morning, miss," said the man.
"Good morning," replied Mavis, wondering who he could be.
"I hoped--you zeemed to like my playing."
"Was it you who played so beautifully?"
"I was up there practising just now."
"Do you often practise like that?"
"It isn't often I get the chance; I'm mostly busy varming."
"Farming?"
"That's it. And what with bad times, one doesn't get much time for the
organ. And when one does, one's vingers run away with one."
"You a farmer?"
"At Pennington Varm. My name's Trivett, miss. If ever you would come in
to tea, Mrs Trivett would be proud to welcome 'ee."
"I should be delighted. Perhaps, if you would like to teach me, I'd
have organ lessons."
"I get so little time, miss. What day will 'ee come to the varm?"
"Next Saturday, if I may,"
"That's zettled. I'm glad you be coming zoon; the colour of the young
grass be wonderful."
"Indeed!" remarked Mavis, as she looked at him, surprised.
"That's the advantage of varming," continued Trivett: "you zee natur in
zo many colours and zo many moods."
Thus talking, they reached the churchyard gates, where Mavis released
Jill, who was delighted at being set at liberty.
Mavis said goodbye to Trivett and recrossed the churchyard on her way
to the river. As she walked, she wondered at Trivett's strange
conjunction of pursuits; also, if he were as good a farmer as he was a
musician.
She found the part of the river nearest to the church crowded with
holiday bathers, so turned aside in the direction of her nook, where
she was tolerably certain of getting quiet. Arrived there, she found
her expectation was not belied. She felt dazed and tired with the
emotions she had experienced; she reclined on the ground to look lazily
at the beauty spread so bountifully about her.
Nature was now at her best. She was like a fair young mother radiant
with the joys attaching to the birth of her firstborn. The striking of
the quarter on the church clock was borne to her on the light wind; she
heard a rumble and caught a glimpse through the young foliage of the
white panelled carriages of a train speeding to Weymouth.
She settled herself for a repose of suspended thought, thankful that
there was no prospect of her peace being interfered with. She had not
lain long when she was disturbed by a plashing of water, at which Jill
was vigorously barking.
She raised her head to see a man swimming; her eyes were fascinated by
the whiteness of the man's flesh. After a while, he returned, to pass
and repass her two or three times. Then, to her consternation, he
approached the bank near to where she lay. She sat up; a few moments
later, the man's head and shoulders appeared among the grasses upon the
river bank.
"Good morning," said the man.
Mavis took no notice, but called to Jill.
"Good morning," repeated the man, who was young and pleasant-looking.
Mavis did not reply.
"Would little Mavis mind moving a little further up the bank?"
continued the man.
Mavis looked at him in astonished anger.
"Because I can't get to my clothes until you do."
Mavis got up, called to Jill, and turned her back on the nook,
wondering how on earth the man could have known her name; also, why he
had the impertinence to address her so familiarly.
She did not get very far, because, call as she might to Jill, the
spoiled dog took no notice of her summons, but remained about the place
that her mistress had left.
Mavis called vainly for some minutes, till, at last, Jill appeared,
carrying the man's collar in her mouth. Mavis tried to induce the dog
to come to her, but, instead, Jill raced madly round and round,
delighted with her find.
Very soon the man appeared, now dressed in a flannel suit, but
collarless; a bath towel was thrown over his shoulder. He advanced to
Mavis in leisurely fashion.
"Bother the man!" she thought.
"May I introduce myself?" he asked, as he lifted his hat.
"No, thank you," she replied coldly.
"There's no occasion. We've already met," he continued.
"I'm sure we haven't, and I haven't the least wish to know you."
"Rot! I'm Charlie Perigal."
"Charlie Perigal!"
"Yes. And how is little Mavis after all these years? But there's little
need to ask."
Here he stared at her with an immense admiration in his eyes.