Mavis of Green Hill Part 43

"Indeed, Miss Mavis," she said earnestly, "not for a hundred Silases would I leave you: But Silas spoke to the Doctor about a place--and the Doctor said he needed a man to drive for him, and so, if you want us, we could both stay on. No one could take care of you," she said, jealously, "except me."

"Does the Doctor know--about you?" I asked.

"Silas didn't tell him--and I was going to wait until we got home. It come all at once," she explained, "but Silas thinks maybe he's guessed--"

And I had been so blind--so blind to the times when Sarah walked out with Silas, for "a breath of air": so blind to the long silences in the kitchen of an evening, under Norah's cordial, Irish eyes.

"It's wonderful!" I said, at last. "Silas is a lucky man. I'm awfully happy for you, Sarah."

"You ain't angry?" she asked timidly. "You don't think it's foolishness--at my age?"

"I think it's beautiful," I said, and as she turned to go, I put out a hand to draw her near, to kiss her. The only mother I had ever known, faithful, self-sacrificing, tender--I was glad that her old age would be sheltered and made happy for her.

After she had gone, I sat for a long time in silence. The voices of the others, their steps on the path, aroused me. And, as I went out obediently to Wright's hail, I thought of Mercedes--and now Sarah--each with her love-story and her pride: the enchanting, spoiled young daughter of America and Spain with her poet, and the elderly woman, austere as her own New England, her shoulders bent in my service, with a good man of her own kind--. Well, Father was left to me, thank G.o.d--but--

I felt terribly lonely.

CHAPTER XIX

The morning the Howells' car came to take Mercedes and Wright to Havana and the Mendez dance, Mrs. Howells came with it. She would not wait for luncheon, but had a little talk with me while Mercedes, in a flutter, was collecting her things. It was a very little talk, and consisted mostly in shruggings of the maternal shoulders, lifting of the placid, maternal brows, and half-finished phrases, unspoken questions. And she left, indolently satisfied. The tin-pans had won her. I foresaw a cloudless sky of courtship for Wright, as far as his Mercedes' mother was concerned.

Mercedes, promising to "return" Wright on the morrow, was reluctant to go.

"I've been so happy here," she whispered, as she kissed me good-by.

"You'll never know how happy. And I'm so grateful, Mavis!"

She kissed Bill, too, when her mother's back was turned, the merest ghost of a caress, brushing his cheek, accompanied by a little giggle of pure mischief. And he patted her slim shoulders with a tolerant hand, as he bade her "run along and enjoy her party."

"My aunt!" said Wright to me, tragically, "couldn't you persuade the old lady to sit in the front seat with that brigand in a general's uniform who is driving the car?"

I waved them farewell with a sinking at my heart. It was as if Youth and Gaiety were leaving me, hand in hand, with never a backward glance.

I did not see Bill again until luncheon an hour later. It was one of our old-time silent meals, although we talked in a desultory manner, while the slippered servitors were in the room. Bill pa.s.sed me salt after the manner of an ancient monarch handing poison--with deadly courtesy. I responded with pepper. And after Wing and Fong had left us, at the end of the meal, I tried desperately to make small talk.

"I miss Mercedes so much," I said, "and Wright too."

No answer.

"It looks like a match," said I presently.

"It does," said Bill, gloomily.

I waited.

"Wright's crazy about her," proffered my husband, after a time, leaning back in his chair.

"Did he tell you so?" I asked curiously.

"Kept me up one whole night, expatiating on her charms and his extreme unworthiness," he replied.

I laughed.

"When I think of the things he said about her at first: 'female leopardess,' and 'did you take him for a lion tamer?'" I said, "it really is funny."

"A little antagonism at the outset," said Bill, blowing neat rings, "is very good for the course of true love--sometimes."

I was silent.

"Of course," said Bill, positively growling, "it's a lottery anyway--"

He was so absurd, so little-boyish, so ill-tempered, that I wanted to mother him. I had seen Peterkins just like that when things went wrong.--After all, I thought, it must be trying to be even temporarily bound to a woman you dislike so much.

"Speaking of lotteries," I said lightly, "you haven't heard the results of the last drawing, have you?"

"No," he answered, "but Silas is counting the hours until the afternoon when the papers come up--he bought half a dozen tickets from that chap who rode up here the other day--"

He rose from his chair and called the garage on the phone. By a miracle, Silas was there, and I heard Bill ask him the number of his tickets. Then, jotting them down, he called Havana and some mysterious person and asked for the winning numbers.

As he spoke in rapid Spanish, I was forced to wait until he turned from the phone to say, "By George, Silas has made a killing!"

I jumped up and was at his elbow when he put the receiver down.

"Oh what is it?" I asked, fairly dancing with excitement.

"Not the big prize," he answered, "but $1500 for all of that--"

"Sarah will die of joy," I began.

"So it's true then," said Bill, interrupting.

"True as true," I answered, "and I think it's splendid."

"I thought there was something afoot," said Bill, "when Silas asked for a job with me. I was glad to give him one. He can be useful to me in a hundred ways. He's a corker--"

"They could build a little house at the back of the garden. Father would be so pleased--" I said, eagerly. "Sarah wouldn't leave me, you know--"

I stopped.

Bill, with his hat in his hands, turned.

"It will be difficult to arrange that," he said, "as you have made other plans. And I shall leave Green Hill--so I am afraid," he concluded evenly, "that a 'little house in the garden'--unless _you_ wish to keep Silas on--wouldn't be quite feasible."

He went out with that, and it was some time before I had pulled myself together and gone in to tell Sarah the news. I saw her later, flying in a most indecorous manner toward the garage, and knew that she and Silas would presently be sitting on the step of the car building air-castles in Green Hill with their new fortune. Well I knew that one of them would be reared in the back of my little garden, just as I thoughtless enough, had one. It wouldn't be fair to hurt Sarah now, I told myself. I would wait till we were home. Sarah would be sorry--she liked Bill--but Father would keep both Sarah and Silas on--the place needed a permanent man-of-all-work....