Sparrows Part 76

This enthusiasm for sea-fishing struck a further chill to Mavis's forlorn heart. She could not help thinking that, if he had been moved by a loving concern for her welfare, he would have devoted his days to the making of a competence on which they could live.

"Now about this trouble," said Perigal, at which Mavis listened with all her ears. He went on: "I know, of course, the proper thing, the right thing to do is to marry you at once." Here he paused.

Mavis waited in suspense for him to go on; it seemed an epoch of time till he added:

"But what are we going to live upon?"

She kept on repeating his words to herself. She felt as if she were drowning in utter darkness.

"I can tell you at once that there's precious little money in bricks.

I'm fighting against big odds, and if I were worrying about you--if you had enough to live upon and all that--I couldn't give proper attention to business."

"It would be heaven for me," she remarked.

"So you say now. All I ask you to do is to trust implicitly in me and wait."

"How long?" she gasped.

"I can't say for certain. It all depends."

"On what?"

"Circ.u.mstances."

She did not speak for some moments, the while she repressed an impulse to throw herself at his feet, and implore him to reconsider his indefinite promise.

"Will you pour me out a little whisky?" she said presently.

"What about your face? It might make it throb."

"I'll chance that."

"Aren't you well, little Mavis?" he asked kindly.

"Not very. It must be the heat of the room."

She gulped down the spirit, to feel the better for it. It seemed to give her heart to face her misfortunes. She could say no more just then, as a man came into the room to lay the table.

Whilst this operation was in progress, she thought of the unlooked-for situation in which she found herself. It was not so very long since Perigal was the suppliant, she the giver; now, the parts were reversed, except that, whereas she had given without stint, he withheld that which every wholesome instinct of his being should urge him to bestow without delay.

She wondered at the reason of the change, till the words he had spoken on the day of their jaunt to Broughton occurred to her:

"No sooner was one want satisfied than another arose to take its place.

It's a law of nature that ensures the survival of the fittest, by making men always struggle to win the desire of the moment."

She had been Perigal's desire, but, once won, another had taken its place, which, so far as she could see, was sea-fishing. She smiled grimly at the alteration in his taste. Then, an idea illuminated, possessed her mind.

"Why not make myself desirable so that he will be eager to win me again," she thought.

So Mavis, despite the pain in her face, which owing to the spirit she had drunk was beginning to trouble her again, set out on the most dismal of all feminine quests--that of endeavouring to make a worldly, selfish man pay the price of his liberty, and endure poverty for that which he had already enjoyed to the full. With a supreme effort of will, she subdued her inclination to unrestrained despair; with complete disregard of the acute pain in her head, she became gay, light-hearted, irresponsible, joyous. There was an undercurrent of suffering in her simulated mirth, but Perigal did not notice it; he was taken by surprise at the sudden change in her mood. He responded to her supposit.i.tious merriment; he laughed and joked as irrepressibly as did Mavis.

"Quite like the old Polperro days," he replied to one of Mavis' sallies.

His remark reduced her to momentary thoughtfulness. The staple dish of the extemporised meal was a pheasant. Perigal, despite her protests, was heaping up her plate a second time, when he said:

"Do you know what I was dreading the whole way up?"

"That you'd got into the right train!"

"Scarcely that. I was funky you'd do the obvious sentimental thing, and wear the old Polperro dress."

"As if I would!"

"Anyway, you haven't. Besides, it's much too cold."

He ordered champagne. Further to play the part of Circe to his Ulysses, she drank a little of this, careless of the pain it might inflict.

Although she was worn down by her anxieties and the pain of her abscess, it gave her an immense thrill of pleasure to notice how soon she recovered her old ascendancy over him. Now, his admiring eyes never left her face. Once, when he got up to hand her something, he went out of his way to come behind her to kiss her neck.

"Little Mavis is a fascinating little devil," he remarked, as he resumed his seat.

"That's what you thought when I met you at the station."

"I was tired and worried, and worry destroys love quicker than anything. Now--"

"Now!"

"You've gone the shortest way to 'buck' me up."

Thus encouraged, Mavis made further efforts to captivate Perigal, and persuade him to fulfill the desire of her heart. Now, he was constantly about her on any and every excuse, when he would either kiss her or caress her hair. After dinner, they sat by the fire, where they drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. Presently, Perigal slipped on the ground beside her, where he leaned his head against her knee, while he fondled one of her feet. Her fingers wandered in his hair.

"Like old times, sweetheart!" he said,

"Is it?" she laughed.

"It is to me, little Mavis. I love you! I love you! I love you!"

Mavis's heart leapt. Life held promise of happiness after all.

"What have you arranged about tonight?" he asked, after a few moments'

silence.

"Nothing unusual. Why?"

"Must you go back?"

"Why?" she asked, wondering what he was driving at.

"I thought you might stay here."