Mavis of Green Hill Part 30

Our sporadic conversation was of trivial things. Not until Wing had departed kitchenward, and Bill lighted his after-luncheon cigarette, was our late unpleasantness alluded to.

"Mavis," said my husband, with a hint of the old, ironic smile I had not seen in many weeks, and which immediately alienated me from him, "I'm afraid that we were both a little tired and over-wrought this morning. And for anything I said which may have offended you, I am quite ready to ask your pardon. However, it is, perhaps, just as well that I understand the way you feel about me. I am, admittedly then, a 'brute': and I have 'presumed' to criticize you, unfairly and without cause--or so you have said. Let that pa.s.s. The most important thing is that you are becoming bored with this solitary confinement, and it so happens that it is within my power to offer you more congenial companionship. I had a letter this morning from Wright Penny--you recall him, do you not? He is in Santiago, and proposes to come to Havana and run out to see us. If it is agreeable to you, I shall wire him to come on prepared to stay, and to return North with us when we go. Would you like that?"

Seven times seven little devils entered into me then, and I clasped my hands on the table and made my eyes round with pleasure.

"I would be delighted," I said, sincerely enough. "I liked Mr.

Penny--what little I saw of him. And I am sure that he would be a congenial house-guest."

"Our first," remarked Bill, with a wholly wicked grin. And I felt as if we had slipped back several months, to a time when enmity was the only possible thing between us, and our weeks of pleasant comradeship were the shadow of a dream.

There must be, I thought, a very real antagonism for one another in our natures: for otherwise, so deep and unspoken a breach could not have been made in ten minutes of foolish anger.

"Wright says," Bill continued, "that he hesitates to intrude upon our 'happy honeymoon hours.' A pretty alliteration. It is not necessary, I hope, to inform him of his mistake."

"He may have eyes--" I suggested.

"Being a poet," he objected, "he is probably myopic."

I ignored this.

"I must find him some pretty girls to play with," I said idly.

"Mercedes," said Bill, "might fit the case."

I was conscious of a sudden flare of anger.

"Bobby Willard's little sister," I said, "seems more Mr. Penny's type.

She is very gentle and lovely."

"Meow?" said my husband, with a rising inflection.

The bright color came to my cheeks.

"Not at all," I said indignantly. "I like Mercedes Howell very much.

But--"

Bill raised an eyebrow, smiled at the glowing end of the cigarette in his hand and said nothing.

He got up from the table and went toward the door.

"Have Miss Willard out here by all means," he said, "but she's milk and water. For my own amus.e.m.e.nt, in my own humble opinion, Mercedes is more stimulating to the Tired Business Man."

He stopped to light another cigarette.

"Of course," he said, through the first breath of smoke, "Wright will naturally suspect you of match-making. All young, happily married women have that benign tendency."

I was stricken dumb with sudden hatred, and before my lips could open again, Bill, with Wiggles at his heels, went out into the sunshine, whistling the challenging song from the first act of "Carmen."

I went to my room and wrote a letter, which, however, I was destined never to send, to Richard Warren.

Peter's convalescence kept me occupied for several days. He had a number of sympathetic callers, from Annunciata to the Howells. I told Mercedes that I would expect her out often to amuse our impending poet, and she preened her bright plumage a little and vowed that a new man would be a "G.o.d-send," looking at Bill the while. At which, with that long-drawn "Me-ow!" still ringing in my ears, I asked her and her parents to join us at dinner the night following Mr. Penny's expected arrival.

On the morning of that arrival Bill tossed over to me a letter from Uncle John Denton.

"There are messages in it for you," he said, and opened his long-stale New York _Times_.

I read the letter, and, as I returned it to the envelope, saw a second sheet which I had not noticed. Uncle John often sent me little enclosures in Bill's letters. Innocently I drew it out, unfolded it, and started to read.

"d.a.m.n!" said my husband without apology, reaching my side in two long steps, "I thought I had taken that out. Give it to me, Mavis!"

But I had already read enough.

"Have you unmasked 'Richard Warren' for Mavis yet?" wrote Uncle John, "and how does she like being the wife of her favorite poet? When are we to have the ma.n.u.script of the new volume? You're long overdue now, you miserable creature!"

"Give it to me!" said Bill.

I handed the note to him without a word. I couldn't have spoken, had my life depended on it.

He followed me to the door of my room.

"Mavis!" he said once or twice.

I put my hand on the latch.

"Don't speak to me!" I said.

In my room, I sat down by the window and tried to think what it all meant. For a time, I was incapable of directed thought. My dream came to me, the dream I had had so long ago, that nightmare in which my unknown poet had changed to the semblance of the man I had met and disliked on meeting, William Denton. So it was true then! After a little, I thought of my letters, my silly, fragile girl-dreams, written for the One, mercilessly exposed to the eyes of the Other. In my desk drawer lay yet another letter, unmailed, thank G.o.d! A letter in which I had said I wanted him back, wanted the comfort and the understanding his letters had brought me once again. Fool--fool and blind! And all the time, this talented trickster had known and laughed: had written me the friendly, lovely letters with his tongue in his cheek: had even spoken to me of love!

I went over to the drawer and took out my Diary. All lies! Some day I must burn it. But not yet. It was like a living thing to me. The little blue book fell open and certain words leaped out at me: "Diary, I have found him.... I've the heart and brain and beautiful spirit of him, and all day long his name makes a happy spot in my consciousness.

Richard Warren! Richard Warren!..."

I closed the book and laid it back with the letters. A great sheaf of thin, typewritten pages ... all lies....

Uncle John had been in the plot then: and Wright Penny. It was very clear to me now.

I took from my neck the jade lucky-charm which "Richard Warren" had sent me and flung it out of the window. Wiggles, prowling beneath, barked happily and set out to retrieve it. Even Wiggles was not mine!

Nothing I had had was mine!

I laid my head on the desk and cried bitterly. It's hard to see the dreams go: to watch the castle you have builded on the shifting sands crumble and fall. These things had meant so much to me, ill and prisoned, and had continued to make a little, inner life for me, after the physical prison doors had opened.

If only by a miracle I could have been back in Green Hill, in my rose-grey room, never to walk again, and with Richard Warren's letters coming to me, out of the Unknown.

Then I remembered ... there was no Richard Warren.

CHAPTER XIII