Sparrows Part 48

"Since I have been resident at Pennington Cottage, one colonel, three doctors, two lawyers, seven reverends, and one banker have visited here."

"I'm glad to see others appreciate you," remarked Mavis.

"Professional gentlemen and their ladies take to me at once. Did you tell me your uncle was a reverend?"

"No, I did not," replied Mavis, who was beginning to lose patience.

"You see, my father being a sea captain--"

"I can't see how that's anything to do with letting lodgings," said Mavis.

"Pardon me, it raises the question of references."

"Of course, I must have yours. I have only your word for the sort of people you've had here."

Mrs Farthing looked at Mavis in astonishment; she was unaccustomed to being tackled in this fashion.

"Perhaps, perhaps you'd like to see the sitting-room?" she faltered.

"I should," said Mavis.

Mrs Farthing led the way to a quaint little room, the window of which overlooked the neighbouring farmyard.

Mavis, although she took a fancy to it at once, was sufficiently diplomatic to say:

"It might, perhaps, suit me."

Mrs. Farthing pointed out the beauty of the view, a recommendation to which Mavis subscribed.

The girl's acquiescence emboldened Mrs Farthing to say:

"Did you say that your mother would sometimes visit you?"

Mavis trembled with indignation.

"I did nothing of the kind, and you know it," she cried. "If you wish to know, I'm employed by Mr Devitt, and should probably have stayed here for years. If you can't see at a glance what I am, all I can say is that you've been used to a tenth-rate lot of lodgers."

Mrs. Farthing capitulated.

"Wouldn't you like to see the bedroom?"

"If you don't ask any more silly questions."

"It's hard to forget my father was a sea captain," explained Mrs Farthing.

A door in the pa.s.sage opened on to winding stairs, up which vanquished and victor walked.

From the first floor, a sort of gangway led to the door of a room that was raised some three feet from the level of where the two women stood.

"Now we ascend the Kyber Pa.s.s," cried Mrs Farthing gaily, as she set foot on the gangway.

As Mavis followed, it occurred to her how this remark might be invariably retailed to prospective lodgers by Mrs Farthing.

The bedroom's neat appointments made it even more attractive in Mavis'

eyes than the sitting-room.

Mrs. Farthing wanted eight shillings a week for a permanency, but Mavis stuck out for seven. The issue was presently compromised by the landlady's agreeing to accept seven and sixpence.

"There's only one thing," said Mrs Farthing, as she sat on the bed; "and that's my husband."

"What about him?" asked Mavis, who had believed that everything was settled.

"He simply can't abide my letting rooms; he's on to me about it morning, noon, and night."

"I'm sorry."

"To think," as he says, "the daughter of a sea captain--" Here Mrs Farthing caught Mavis' eye, to subst.i.tute for what she was about to say: "But there," he says, "work your fingers to the bone; go and commit suicide by overdoing it; kill yourself outright with making other people comfortable, so long as you get your own way."

"Really!"

"That's what he says every minute of the time that he's at home."

When Mavis left Mrs Farthing to walk to the station, she could not help noticing how the rough and tumble of her experiences had had a hardening effect upon her once soft heart. It was not so long ago that, although presumption on a landlady's part would have goaded Mavis into making an apposite retort, she would have bitterly regretted the pain that her words may have inflicted. Now, she was indifferent to any annoyance that she may have caused Mrs Farthing. If anything, she was rather pleased with herself for having shown the woman her place.

It was something of an experience for Mavis to spend the evening in the sitting-room of a country railway station. Stillness violently alternated with the roar and rush of the trains. Mr Medlicott spent his spare time in the sitting-room, where his eyes never deserted the faded, uncanny-looking cabinet piano, which spread its expanse of faded green silk at one end of the room.

Mavis noticed his preoccupation.

"I wonder if you would do me a favour?" she asked.

"And what might that be?"

"If you would sing?"

"Delighted!" he cried, as he excitedly sprang to his feet.

"How nice of you!"

"Stay! What about the accompaniment?"

"I can manage that."

"At sight?"

"I think so."

"You're an acquisition to Melkbridge. There's one other thing."