Monitress Merle Part 28

"It is, if you can't tell where you're going. Who's been fooling with the bell at St. Morval's, I wonder? If the clapper has fallen out, they should have had it put in again at once. But that's just the way with them. It's n.o.body's business, and everybody puts it on to somebody else until there's an accident. I've no patience with them!"

When the meal was over, Mavis went out to take a peep at the sea, or rather where the sea ought to be, for there was nothing to look at but a white wall of mist, long wreaths of which were blowing inland and trailing like ghosts into the town. She came hurrying back very quickly to Grimbal's Farm, and sought the kitchen.

"Mrs. Penruddock, please, may I borrow your big dinner-bell?" she asked.

"Why, yes, my dear! But whatever do you want that for?"

"I'm going to take it to St. Morval's Head and ring it!"

"Bless you! Not a bad idea either! There'd be no harm done anyhow. I'd go with you if I'd the time. Mind your way along that slippery cliff. Pity your sister's not here to-day!"

"I shall be all right, thanks! The fog isn't so bad on land. It's quite easy to see where one's going."

Grasping the big bra.s.s dinner-bell, Mavis set forth, and going by a path above the farm, got out on to the cliffs. She knew the way very well, for she had often been before, and had not the slightest fear of getting lost, even if the mist should grow thicker. She walked briskly along, the track in front of her looking quite plain for several yards, though the sea below was completely hidden. She recognised many familiar points en route, the bank where the spleenwort grew, the ruined shed, a supposed relic of smuggling days, the barbed-wire fence, the group of elder trees, and the blackberry bank. When she came to the slanting gorse bushes which overhung the path, she knew she had reached the beginning of St. Morval's Head, and that she must be just about over the spot where the buoy was floating with its clapperless bell.

"It's the story of the Inchcape rock all over again," she muttered, and sitting down on the bracken she began ringing.

It was monotonous work and tiring too. It made her arm ache, and she had to use her left hand for a while instead. She went on persistently, however, for who knew what little yacht might be venturing near the treacherous rocks below. It was an extraordinarily lonely feeling to be there on the cliff by herself, with the white mist round her, as if she were in the midst of the clouds. She would have been chilly only the exercise kept her warm. She was obliged to rest every now and then, but not for long. She did not mean to give in for some time yet. She kept repeating over and over to herself:

'The worthy Abbot of Aberbrothock Had placed that bell on the Inchcape rock.

On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, And over the waves its warning rung.'

The occupation grew so monotonous that she began to feel as if she had been on the cliff for weeks. After what seemed an absolute slice out of eternity, there came a "h.e.l.lo!" on the path behind her. She stopped ringing and jumped to her feet.

"Bevis! It's never you!"

"Mavis! Did you do all this for me? You trump!"

"Did you hear my bell, then, on the sea?"

"Of course I did, and it gave me my right reckoning. I hardly knew where I was. I might have been on the rocks without. Mrs. Penruddock told me about it, and I came at once to fetch you back."

"I wonder you didn't go to tell Romola you were safe!"

"Romola! Why on earth should I tell Romola?"

Mavis did not reply all at once.

"Only because I thought you seemed particularly interested in her!" she said at last.

Bevis looked frankly puzzled, then his face cleared and he drew a small photo from his pocket.

"Did Clive send you one of these?"

"He did!"

"Well, don't you know who the girl is? Can't you see it's Clive? Clive, dressed up in Romola's togs! Those are hardly Romola's boots, are they?

We nearly died with laughing over it. He looked too killing for words. It was Madox who took the snap with Clive's camera."

Mavis, examining the photo by the light of these explanations, had little difficulty in recognising her boy cousin. Bevis was roaring with laughter at the joke, then he suddenly grew serious.

"Mavis!" he said in dead earnest. "You never thought I'd go making such a silly a.s.s of myself with little Romola? That's not in my line at all!"

It was Mavis who did the blushing.

"Look here! We may as well have this out between us. If there's ever to be a mistress at The Warren--and I hope there will some day--I know whom I'd choose! Why, it's Mavis, the one who was good to me when I'd hardly a friend in the world or a name to call myself by, who didn't despise me for being a n.o.body, and wasn't ashamed to walk with me through the village, and who's kept me off more rocks than she's any idea of, besides what she's done for me to-day! If I asked her some day to think it over, do you fancy she might answer 'yes'?"