Sparrows Part 108

Mavis was informed that Mr Hutton would lend her the money needed to get rid of Mr Gunner's embarra.s.sing presence, for which she was to pay two pounds interest, if repaid in a month, and eight pounds interest a year during which the capital sum was being repaid by monthly instalments.

"I will telegraph to Germany," said Mavis. "You shall have the money next week at latest."

Mr Hutton wanted guarantees; failing these, was Mavis in any kind of employment?

Mavis told him how she was employed by Mr Devitt.

The man opened his eyes. Had the lady proof of this statement?

Mavis thrust her hand into her pocket, believing she might find the letter which Montague Devitt had written to Pimlico. She brought out, instead, the letter the foreman had put into her hand when she was leaving in reply to Mrs Trivett's summons. The envelope of this was addressed in Mr Devitt's hand.

"Here's a letter from him here," declared Mavis, as she tore it open to glance at its contents before pa.s.sing it on to Hutton.

But the glance hardened into a look of deadly seriousness as her eyes fell on what was written. She re-read the letter two or three times before she grasped its import.

"Dear Miss Keeves," it ran, "it is with the very deepest regret that I write to say that certain facts have come to my knowledge with regard to the way in which you spent your holiday last year at Polperro. I, also, gather that your sudden departure from Melkbridge was in connection with this visit. As a strict moral rect.i.tude is a sine qua non amongst those I employ, I must ask you to be good enough to resign your appointment. I enclose cheque for present and next week's salary.--Truly yours,

"MONTAGUE S.T. DEVITT."

The faces about her faded from her view; the room seemed as if it were going round.

"What's the matter, ma'am?" asked Mrs Trivett anxiously.

"I can't give the guarantee," gasped Mavis.

Mr Hutton rose and b.u.t.toned his coat.

"What about Germany?" put in Mrs Trivett.

"I'd forgotten that," said Mavis. "I'll write a telegram at once."

Mr Hutton unb.u.t.toned his coat.

"Here's ink and paper, ma'am."

Mavis took up the pen, at which Mr Hutton sat down. But she could not remember the address. With swimming head, she dived her hand into the pockets of her frock, but could not find Windebank's letter.

"I must have left it at the office," she murmured.

"What is it you want?" asked Mrs Trivett.

"His letter for the address."

Mr Hutton got up.

"What time is it?" asked Mavis.

"Just six o'clock."

"The factory would be locked for the night. Won't they take my word?"

she asked. "I don't want to be parted from my child while I go to the factory."

Mr Hutton b.u.t.toned his coat.

Mavis made an impa.s.sioned appeal to the man in possession and his friend. She might as well have talked to the stone walls which lined the Dippenham Road for any impression she produced.

"This address will find me up to ten o'clock to-night, mum," said Mr Hutton, as he threw a soiled envelope on the table. "An' if I'm woke up arter, I charge it on the interest."

When Mr Hutton had taken his leave, Mavis fought an attack of hysterics. Realising that Gunner, the broker's man, would prove as good as his word in the matter of having her sick child removed, if the money were not forthcoming, Mavis saw that there was no time to be lost. She quickly wrote two notes, one of which was to Miss Toombs, the other to Charlie Perigal. In these she briefly recounted the circ.u.mstances of her necessity. Trivett was dispatched to Miss Toombs, whilst his wife undertook to deliver Perigal's note at his father's house.

Mavis waited by her beloved boy's side while the messengers sped upon their respective errands. Her child was doubly dear to her now that their separation was threatened. As his troubled eyes looked helplessly (sometimes it seemed appealingly) into hers, she vowed again and again that he should never be taken away to be nursed by strangers. Something would happen, something must happen to prevent such a mutilation of her holiest feelings as would be occasioned by her enforced separation from her sick boy. Of course, why had she not thought of it before? Her lover, the boy's father, would return with the messenger, to be reconciled to her over the nursing of the ailing little life back to health and strength. She had read much the same sort of thing in books, which were always informed with life.

The minutes of the American clock, which had belonged to Miss Nippett, laboriously totalled into an hour. Mavis could hear Gunner uneasily shuffling in the room below. The late August evening was drawing in.

Mavis quite succeeded in persuading herself that this would prove the last night of her misfortunes.

Mr Trivett was the first to return. He brought six pounds from Miss Toombs, with a note saying that it was all she could lay hands upon.

This, with the four which Mavis possessed, made ten. Gunner smiled amiably and set about collecting his clay pipes, which he had left in odd corners of the cottage. Then, after half an hour of weary waiting, Mrs Trivett came to the door, which Mavis opened with trembling hands.

She was alone. Her face proclaimed the fruitlessness of her errand.

"Mr Charles Perigal was out for the evening and would not be back till quite late," she had been told.

This decided Mavis to act upon a resolve that, had been formulating in her mind while waiting for Mrs Trivett's return.

"Give me half an hour," she said to the sullen Gunner. "I'll make it well worth your while." She then went upstairs to kiss her baby before setting out.

"Where are you going, ma'am?" asked tearful Mrs Trivett, who had followed her upstairs.

"To Mr Devitt. He's kind at heart. I know, if I can see him, he'll give me what I want."

"But will he see you?"

"I'll see to that. Promise you won't leave baby while I'm gone."

Mavis took a last look of her darling as she went out of the door. She then let herself out and sped in the direction of the Bathminster Road.

She scarcely knew, she did not care, what she should say when she came face to face with Devitt. She had almost forgotten that he had been informed of her secret. All she knew was that she was in peril of losing her sick child, and that she was fighting for its possession with the weapons that came handiest. Nothing else in the world was of the smallest account. She also dimly realised that she was fighting for her lover's approval, to whom she would soon have to render an account of her stewardship to his son. This gave edge to her determination. She knocked at the door of the brightly lit, pretentious-looking house in the Bathminster Road.

"I want to see Mr Devitt privately," she told the fat butler who opened the door.

He would have shown her into a room, but she preferred to wait in the hall, which, just now, was littered with trunks.

"I think he's with Mr Harold," said the man, as he walked to a door at the further end of the hall.

The trunk labels were written in a firm, bold hand, which caught Mavis's eye. "Harold Devitt, Esq., Homeleigh, Swanage, Dorset," was the apparent destination of the luggage.

"Mr Devitt must be in the drawing-room," said Hayter, as he reappeared to walk up the stairs.