Mavis was seriously alarmed for Miss Nippett. Her friend was so ill
that she insisted upon a doctor being called in. After examining the
patient, he told her that Miss Nippett was suffering from acute
influenza; also, that complications were threatening. He warned Mavis
of the risk of catching the disease, which, in her present condition,
might have serious consequences; but she had not the heart to leave her
friend to the intermittent care of the landlady. With the money that
Miss Nippett instructed her to find in queer hiding-places, Mavis
purchased bovril, eggs, and brandy, with which she did her best to
patch up the enfeebled frame of the sick woman. Nothing that she or the
doctor could do had any permanent effect; every evening, Miss Nippett's
temperature would rise with alarming persistence.
"I wonder if she's anything on her mind that might account for it," the
doctor said to Mavis, when leaving one evening.
"I don't see what she could have, unless--"
"Unless?"
"I believe she worries about a matter connected with her old
occupation. I'll try and find out," said Mavis.
"'Ow did 'e say I was?" asked Miss Nippett, as Mavis rejoined her.
"Much better."
"I ain't."
"Nonsense!"
"Reely I ain't. If 'e says I'm better, 'e'd better stay away. That's
the worst of these fash'nable 'Bush' doctors; they make fortunes out of
flattering people they're better when they're not."
Mavis had more than a suspicion that Miss Nippett's retarded
convalescence was due to not having attained that position in the
academy to which she believed her years of faithful service entitled
her. Mavis made reference to the matter; the nature of Miss Nippett's
replies converted suspicion into certainty.
The next morning, Mavis called on Mr Poulter, whom she had not seen for
two weeks, the increasing physical disabilities of her condition
compelling her to give up work at the academy. She found him engaged in
the invention of a new country dance for a forthcoming competition.
Mavis explained her errand, but had some difficulty in convincing even
kindly Mr Poulter of Miss Nippett's ambitious leanings: in the course
of years, he had come to look on his devoted accompanist very much as
he regarded "Turpsichor" who stood by the front door. Mavis's request
surprised him almost as much as if he had been told that "Turpsichor"
herself ached to waltz with him in the publicity of a long night.
"I don't believe she's very long to live," said Mavis. "If you could
make her a partner, merely in an honorary sense, it would make her last
days radiantly happy."
"It might be done, my dear," mused Mr Poulter.
"But, whatever you do, don't let her think I suggested it to you."
"'Poulter's' can be the soul of tact and discretion," he informed her.
After more conversation on the subject, Mavis was about to take her
leave when the postman brought a parcel addressed to her at the
academy, from her old Pennington friend, Mrs Trivett. It contained
eggs, butter, and cream, together with a letter. This last told Mavis
that things were in a bad way at the farm; in consequence, her husband
was thinking of sub-letting his house, in order to migrate to
Melkbridge, where he might earn a living by teaching music. It closed
with repeated wishes for Mavis's welfare.
"These people will send things in my maiden name," said Mavis, as she
wondered if Mr Poulter's suspicions had been aroused by similar
packages having occasionally arrived for her addressed in the same way.
"It was only to be expected. From your professional association with
the academy, they would think it only proper to address you by 'Miss'
and your maiden name," remarked guileless Mr Poulter.
Upon Mavis's third visit to Miss Nippett after her interview with Mr
Poulter, she noticed a change in the sick woman's appearance; she was
sitting up in bed with a face wreathed in smiles.
"'Ave you 'eard?" she cried excitedly, when she saw Mavis.
"Heard what?" asked Mavis innocently.
"'Bout me an' 'Poulter's.' You don't mean to say you 'aven't 'eard!"
"I hope it's good news."
"Good! Good! It's wonderful! Jest you throw your eye over that."
Mavis read a formally worded letter from Mr Poulter, in which he
informed Miss Nippett "that, in consideration of her many years'
faithful service, he could think of no more fitting way to reward her
than by taking her into partnership: in accordance with this resolve,
what was formerly known as 'Poulter's' would in future be described for
all time as 'Poulter and Nippett's.'"
"What d'ye think of that?" asked Miss Nippett.
"It's only what you deserved."
"There's no going back on it now it's in black and white."
"He wouldn't wish to."
"It's proof, ain't it, legal an' all that?"
"Absolute. I congratulate you," said Mavis, as she took the wan white
hand in hers.
"Even now I can't b'lieve it's true," sighed the accompanist, as she
sank exhausted on her pillows.
"You're overdoing it," said Mavis, as she mixed some brandy and milk.
"I 'ate the muck," declared Miss Nippett, when Mavis besought her to
drink it.
"But if you don't do what you're told, you'll never get well."
"Reely!"
"Of course not. Take this at once," Mavis commanded.
"Here, I say, who are you talking to? Have you for gotten I'm a partner
in--" Here the little woman broke off, to exclaim as she burst into
tears: "It's true: it's true: it's reely, reely true."
Before Mavis went home, she soothed Miss Nippett's tears; she left her
in a condition of radiant, enviable happiness. She had never seen
anyone so possessed by calm abiding joy as the accompanist at her
unlooked-for good fortune.
On her way back, Mavis marvelled at what she believed to be the
all-wise arrangements of Providence, by which happiness was parcelled
out to the humblest of human beings. With the exception of Windebank,
she had not been friendly with a rich person since she had been a
child, so could not, at present, have any opinion of how much happiness
the wealthy enjoyed; but she could not help remarking how much joy and
contentment she had encountered in the person seemingly most unlikely
to be thus blessed. At this period of her life, it did not occur to her
that the natural and proper egoism of the human mind finds expression
in a vanity, that, if happily unchastened by knowledge or experience,
is a source of undiluted joy to the possessor.
If time be measured by the amount of suffering endured, it was a little
later that Mavis realised that to be ignorant is to be often happy,
enlightenment begetting desires that there is no prospect of staying,
and, therefore, discontentment ensues.
When Mavis next visited Miss Nippett, she rummaged, at her friend's
request, in the cupboard containing the unclaimed "overs" for finery
with which the accompanist wished to decorate her exalted state. If
Miss Nippett had had her way and had appeared in the street wearing the
gaudy, fluffy things she picked out, she would have been put down as a
disreputable old lady. But, for all Miss Nippett's resolves, it was
written in the book of fate that she was to take but one more journey
out of doors, and that in the simplest of raiment. For all her
prodigious elation at her public association with Mr Poulter, her
health far from improved; her strength declined daily; she wasted away
before Mavis' dismayed eyes. She did not suffer, but dozed away the
hours with increasingly rare intervals in which she was stark awake. On
these latter occasions, for all the latent happiness which had come
into her life, she would fret because Mr Poulter rarely called to
inquire after her health. Such was her distress at this remissness on
the part of the dancing master, that more often than not, when Miss
Nippett, after waking from sleep, asked with evident concern if Mr
Poulter had been, Mavis would reply:
"Yes. But he didn't like to come upstairs and disturb you."
For five or six occasions Miss Nippett accepted this explanation, but,
at last, she became skeptical of Mavis' statements.
"Funny 'e always comes when I'm asleep!" she would say. "S'pose he was
too busy to send up 'is name an' chance waking me. Tell those stories
to them as swallers them."
But a time came when Miss Nippett was too ill even to fret. For three
days she lay in the dim borderland of death, during which the doctor,
when he visited her, became more and more grave. A time came when he
could do no more; he told Mavis that the accompanist would soon be
beyond further need of mortal aid.
The news seemed to strike a chill to Mavis' heart. Owing to their
frequent meetings, Miss Nippett had become endeared to her: she could
hardly speak for emotion.
"How long will it be?" she asked.
"She'll probably drag through the night. But if I were you, I should go
home in the morning."
"And leave her to die alone?"
"You have your own trouble to face. Hasn't she any friends?"
"None that I know of."
"No one she'd care to see?"
"There's one man, her old employer. But he's always so busy."
"Where does he live?"
Mavis told him.
"I'll find time to see him and ask him to come."
"It's very kind of you."
But the kindly doctor did not seem to hear what she said; he was sadly
regarding Miss Nippett, who, just now, was dozing uneasily on her
pillows. Then, without saying a word, he left the room.
Thus it came about that Mavis kept the long, sad night vigil beside the
woman whom death was to claim so soon. As Miss Nippett's numbered
moments remorselessly passed, the girl's heart went out to the pitiful,
shrivelled figure in the bed. It seemed that an unfair contest was
being fought between the might and majesty of death on the one hand,
and an insignificant, work-worn woman on the other, in which the ailing
body had not the ghost of a chance. Mavis found herself reflecting on
the futility of life, if all it led to were such a pitifully unequal
struggle as that going on before her eyes. Then she remembered how she
had been taught that this world was but a preparation for the joyous
life in the next; also, that directly Miss Nippett ceased to breathe it
would mean that she was entering upon her existence in realms of bliss.
Somehow, Mavis could not help smiling at the mental picture of her
friend which had suddenly occurred to her. In this, she had imagined
Miss Nippett with a crown on her head and a harp in her hand, singing
celestial melodies at the top of her voice. The next moment, she
reproached herself for this untimely thought; her heart ached at the
extremity of the little old woman huddled up in the bed. Mavis had
always lived her life among more or less healthy people, who were
ceaselessly struggling in order to live; consequently, she had always
disregarded the existence of death. The great destroyer seemed to find
small employment amongst those who flocked to their work in the morning
and left it at night; but here, in the meagre room, where human clay
was, as it were, stripped of all adornments, in order not to lose the
smallest chance in the fell tussle with disease, it was brought home to
Mavis what frail opposition the bodies of men and women alike offer to
the assaults of the many missioners of death. Things that she had not
thought of before were laid bare before her eyes. The inevitable ending
of life bestowed on all flesh an infinite pathos which she had never
before remarked. The impotence of mankind to escape its destiny made
life appear to her but as a tragic procession, in which all its
distractions and vanities were only so much make-believe, in order to
hide its destination from eyes that feared to see. The helplessness,
the pitifulness of the passing away of the lonely old woman gave a
dignity, a grandeur to her declining moments, which infected the common
furniture of the room. The cheap, painted chest of drawers, the worn
trunk at the foot of the bed, the dingy wall-paper, the shaded white
glass lamp on the rickety table, all seemed invested with a nobility
alien to their everyday common appearance, inasmuch as they assisted at
the turning of a living thing, who had rejoiced, and toiled, and
suffered, into unresponsive clay. Even the American clock on the
mantelpiece acquired a fine distinction by reason of its measuring the
last moments of a human being, with all its miserable sensibility to
pain and joy--a distinction that was not a little increased, in Mavis'
eyes, owing to the worldly insignificance of the doomed woman.
After Mavis had got ready to hand things that might be wanted in the
night, she settled herself in a chair by the head of the bed in order
to snatch what sleep she might. Before she dozed, she wondered if that
day week, which she would be spending at Mrs Gowler's, would find her
as prostrated by illness as was her friend. Two or three times in the
dread silent watches of the night, she was awakened by Miss Nippett's
continually talking to herself. Mavis would interrupt her by asking if
she would take any nourishment; but Miss Nippett, vouchsafing no
answer, would go on speaking as before, her talk being entirely
concerned with matters connected with the academy. And all the time,
the American clock on the mantelpiece remorselessly ticked off the
accompanist's remaining moments.
Mavis, heartsick and weary, got little sleep. She watched the night
grow paler and paler outside the window, till, presently, the shaded
lamp at the bedside seemed absurdly wan. Birds greeted with their songs
the coming of the day. The sun rose in another such a blue sky as that
on which she and Charlie Perigal had enjoyed their
never-to-be-forgotten visit to Llansallas Bay. Mavis was not a little
jarred by the insensibility of the June day to Miss Nippett's
approaching dissolution. She reflected in what a sad case would be
humanity, if there were no loving Father to welcome the bruised and
weary traveller, arrived at the end of life's pilgrimage, with loving
words or healing sympathy. In her heart of hearts, she envied Miss
Nippett the heavenly solace and divine compassion which would soon be
hers. Then her heart leapt to the glory of the young June day; she
devoutly hoped that she would be spared to witness many, many such days
as she now looked upon.
"Mrs Kenrick!" said a voice from the bed.
"Are you awake?" asked Mavis.
"Do draw that there blind. I can't stand that there sun."
"Does it worry you?"
"Give me the 'lectric, same as they have at the Athenaeum on long
nights."
Mavis did as she was bid: the light of the lamp at once became an
illumination of some importance.
"Now I want me shawl on again; the old one." "Don't you want any
nourishment?" asked Mavis, as she fastened the familiar shawl about
Miss Nippett's shoulders.
"What's the use?"
"To get better, of course."
"No getting better for me. I know: reely I do."
"Nonsense!"
Miss Nippett shook her head as resolutely as her bodily weakness
permitted.
"What's the time?" she asked presently.
Mavis told her.
"Whatever 'appens, I shall go down to posterity as a partner in
'Poulter's'!"
"You've no business to think of such things," faltered Mavis.
"It's no use codding me. I know; reely I do."
"Then, if you don't believe me, wouldn't you like to see a clergyman?"
"There's someone else I'd much sooner see."
"Mr Poulter?"
"You've guessed right this time. Is there--is there any chance of his
coming?" asked Miss Nippett wistfully.
"There's every chance. The doctor was going to tell him how ill you
were."
"But you don't understand; these great, big, famous men ain't like me
and you. They--they forget and--" Tears gathered in the red rims of
Miss Nippett's eyes. Mavis wiped them gently away and softly kissed the
puckered brow.
"There's somethin' I'd like to tell you," said Miss Nippett, some
minutes later.
"Try and get some sleep," urged Mavis.
"But I want to tell someone. It isn't as if you was a larruping girl
who'd laugh, but you're a wife, an' ever so big at that, with what
you're expectin' next week."
"What is it?" asked Mavis.
"Bend over: you never know oo's listening."
Mavis did as she was asked.
"It's Mr Poulter--can't you guess?" faltered Miss Nippett.
"Tell me, dear."
"I b'lieve I love him: reely I do. Don't laugh."
"Why should I?"
"There was nothing in it--don't run away thinking there was--but how
could there be, 'im so great and noble and famous, and me--"
Increasing weakness would not suffer Miss Nippett to finish the
sentence.
Mavis forced her to take some nourishment, after which, Miss Nippett
lay back on her pillow, with her eyes fixed on the clock. Mavis sat in
the chair by the bedside. Now and again, her eyes would seek the
timepiece. Whenever she heard a sound downstairs (for some time the
people of the house could be heard moving about), Miss Nippett would
listen intently and then look wistfully at Mavis.
The girl divined how heartfully the dying woman hungered for Mr
Poulter's coming.
Thrice Mavis offered to seek him out, but on each occasion Miss
Nippett's terrified pleadings not to be left alone constrained her to
stay.
It wanted a few minutes to eight when Miss Nippett fell into a peaceful
doze. Mavis took this opportunity of making herself a much-needed cup
of tea. Whilst she was gratefully sipping it, Miss Nippett suddenly
awoke to say:
"There! There's something I always meant to do."
"Never mind now," said Mavis soothingly.
"But I do. It is something to mind about--I never stood 'Turpsichor' a
noo coat of paint."
"Don't worry about it."
"I always promised I would, but kep' putting it off an' off, an' now
she'll never get it from me. Poor old 'Turpsichor'!"
Miss Nippett soon forgot her neglect of "Turpsichor" and fell into a
further doze.
When she next awoke, she asked:
"Would you mind drawing them curtains?"
"Like that?"
"You are good to me: reely you are."
"Nonsense!"
"But then you ought to be: you've got a good man to love you an' give
you babies."
"What is it you want?" asked Mavis sadly.
"Can you see the 'Scrubbs'?"
"The prison?"
"Yes, the 'Scrubbs.' Can you see 'em?"
"Yes."
"Quite distinct?"
"Quite."
"That's awright."
Miss Nippett sighed with some content.
"If 'e don't come soon, 'e'll be too late," murmured Miss Nippett after
an interval of seeming exhaustion.
Mavis waited with ears straining for the sound of the knocker on the
front door. Miss Nippett lay so that her weakening eyes could watch the
door of the bedroom. Now and again, Mavis addressed one or two remarks
to her, but the old woman merely shook her head, as if to convey that
she had neither the wish nor the strength for further speech. Mavis,
with a great fear, noted the failing light in her friend's eyes, but
was convinced that, for all the weakening of the woman's physical
processes, she desired as ardently as ever a sight of Mr Poulter before
she died. A few minutes later, a greyness crept into Miss Nippett's
face. Mavis repressed an inclination to fly from the room. Then,
although she feared to believe the evidence of her ears, a knock was
heard at the door. After what seemed an interval of centuries, she
heard footsteps ascending the stairs. Mavis glanced at Miss Nippett.
She was horrified to see that her friend was heedless of Mr Poulter's
possible approach. She moved quickly to the door. To her unspeakable
relief, Mr Poulter stood outside. She beckoned him quickly into the
room. He hastened to the bedside, where, after gazing sadly at the all
but unconscious Miss Nippett, he knelt to take the woman's wan, worn
hand in his. To Mavis's surprise, Miss Nippett's fingers at once closed
on those of Mr Poulter. As the realisation of his presence reached the
dying woman's understanding, a smile of infinite gladness spread over
her face: a rare, happy smile, which, as if by magic, effaced the
puckered forehead, the wasted cheeks, the long upper lip, to substitute
in their stead a great contentment, such as might be possessed by one
who has found a deep joy, not only after much travail, but as if, till
the last moment, the longed-for bliss had all but been denied. The wan
fingers grasped tighter and tighter; the smile faded a little before
becoming fixed.
Another moment, and "Poulter's" had lost the most devoted servant which
it had ever possessed.