Mavis of Green Hill Part 40

"You'll stay to chaperone the Irresponsibles?" I asked my husband.

"Gladly," he said, "and discreetly--from a distance."

There was something so comfortable and lovable about him that night that I suddenly wanted to tell him I was sorry that we had quarrelled, sorry that the barrier had arisen between us. But I couldn't. In one way, however, I might make amends. I said,

"I've grown awfully fond of Mercedes. I hope she will come North sometime--for the summer, perhaps. I think I misjudged her cruelly for a while."

The steel-blue eyes grew warm.

"She's a very nice child," said Bill, "and I knew you'd find it out before long. You didn't give her a chance at first. But I'm glad you like her, Mavis, for you can do her a lot of good."

"How?" I asked curiously.

"Well, for one thing, you're pretty well balanced--most of the time.

And for another, you have had the advantage of a unique and splendid upbringing. And for another, you are--unless given certain circ.u.mstances--most uncommonly sweet."

He said it in a very matter-of-fact tone: and looked at his watch as he spoke--not at me. I was absurdly embarra.s.sed.

"Are--are you a 'certain circ.u.mstance'?" I asked daringly, and escaped to my room before he could answer. I heard him start to follow me, but apparently he thought better of it. But long after I was in bed, I heard a foot-fall under my windows, the smell of a pipe drifted in through the flower-scent, and the sound of a baritone voice singing softly,

"Who is Sylvia--who is she--?"

"Is she kind as she is fair--?"

I lay for some time, listening, and finally, as the footsteps turned away and the song grew fainter, I laid my hot cheek to the pillow and slept, dreamlessly, until morning.

But when morning came, it all seemed very far away--that talk at the Country Club--and the steps below my window. Wright was in his silliest mood, and Mercedes and he kept up a running fire of foolishness. Bill was preoccupied, almost abrupt. He left us directly after lunch, on one of his now daily visits to the Crowell plantation.

And Mercedes disappeared with Wright at the same time. Where they were, I do not know to this day.

I had tea alone: Peter was with Sarah, and after tea I went out restlessly and walked, stopping at old Manuel's and at Annunciata's.

It was growing dark before I turned homewards again, and there was a strange lingering light in the sky which drew my attention. A great, sulphur-colored cloud, murky and ominous, not like any cloud I had ever seen. I hurried on and had reached the gates before the wind came. A rush, a tearing at trees and bushes, a tremendous sweep of hot, choking dust and air. I could hardly keep my feet, and struggled, step by step, head down, almost defenceless in the face of the storm.

The wind had risen, apparently, without warning. And yet, looking back on it afterwards, I realized that, had I been a little more familiar with the vagaries of Cuban climate, I would have noticed the curious hush, the absolute stillness, expectant and breathless, which lay over Guayabal just before the storm broke. Nearing the house, I heard a tremendous crash, voices, and the sound of hurrying foot-steps. The wind was increasing in volume, and I fairly stumbled up the steps, almost falling. When my hand was finally on the door, it was wrenched open with violence, and I saw Bill on the threshold, very white, with burning blue eyes.

He caught me by the arm and pulled me into the room.

"Where have you been?" he said, furiously.

"Walking," said I, the ruins of my hat in my hand.

He made a sound in his throat, half-anger, half-impotence.

"The roof of the garage has blown off," he said. "It's a nice little storm. I have been looking for you all over the plantation. No one had any idea where you were. I found Wright and sent Mercedes in the house--she's had rather a narrow escape--from a falling tree. She's all right, but hysterical--"

"I must go to her at once," I said, starting off.

The long arm shot out and I was pulled close to the tall, lean figure.

"Just a minute," said Bill. "Mercedes is all right, as I said. Sarah is with her. But I want to ask you this ... quite aside from the danger you ran, in a wind like this, why did you disobey my express wishes and go out--alone--away from the house?"

Then I remembered.

"I--" said I, and was silent.

Bill dropped my arm.

"I suppose," he said with bitterness, "it was because I asked you not to. Very well, I've learned my lesson. You knew that Guayabal is in a very unsettled state: you knew that Crowell had had trouble on his plantation: I told you there had been threats--demonstrations. I asked you not to run any risks. That is why, I suppose, when the opportunity arose, you deliberately ignored my wishes."

"You are very unjust," I said, fighting back the tears.

"I hope so," said Bill quietly, "but I'm afraid not. It seems as if we couldn't have a whole day of peace and friendliness under the same roof. I've tried my best, Mavis, to be as little in your way as possible--to make the best of a trying situation. But at every turn you manage to antagonize me and to rebel against me. I might have known--"

He turned away and lighted a cigarette with fingers which shook.

"I'm sorry," I said, steadying my voice with an effort, "if I have annoyed you. I did not go out this afternoon with such intention."

I would have stopped there, but the lift of his shoulders angered me until I finally lost all control of myself.

"I'll not be a burden to you long," I said. "As soon as we are home again I will release you from your responsibilities. I have wanted to spare Father, but I see that I can't--you go too far. I don't know how such things are done, but it shouldn't be very difficult to obtain an annulment of our marriage. The whole thing has been a ghastly mistake ... an impulse I have regretted ever since. But it's not too late," I said, with my head held very high, "to rectify that mistake."

I walked past him into my own room. Somehow the pride that had always come to my rescue was missing now. I was just hurt--hurt, and unhappy and very lonely. To speak to me so! To look at me so, out of those steel-blue eyes! It was not just; it was not anything but deliberate cruelty!

Once having said that I would make myself free, the thing crystalized for me as it had never done before. Of course, I had meant all along to separate from my temporary husband. That was understood at the outset. But it had seemed a long way off, indefinitely vague. And now that my decision was spoken, it loomed very near. Irrevocable. I shrank, in antic.i.p.ation, from the publicity of it, the questions, the prying eyes. Wright would wonder and grieve--and Mercedes--and I? I hardly knew. On Father's sorrow and self-reproach I dared not dwell.

Now I had nothing left.

I rose and bathed my eyes. They were swollen from crying and my throat ached abominably. And then, with a tremendous effort, I opened my door and went out to find Mercedes.

She was in her room, shaken but quite recovered, and full of grat.i.tude to Wright for seeing her danger and pulling her away just in time.

"Where were you?" she asked anxiously. "You weren't hurt, were you?

You look dreadfully, Mavis!"

Hurt? Yes, I was hurt beyond healing. But Mercedes must not know.

"I was in no danger," I said, evasively. "I came in just as the storm was beginning."

"You heard the roof go then?" she asked. "Wasn't it awful? It is a wonder Bill wasn't killed--he was just driving the car in...."

"Bill?" I said, stupidly.

"What's the matter? Didn't he tell you? You're white as a sheet!"

She jumped up from the bed and put her arms about me.

"Mavis, are you faint? Let me call Bill!"

"Please don't," I said. "I'm all right now."

The dreadful dizziness had pa.s.sed: my ears stopped singing and the room a.s.sumed its normal aspect again.