Mavering

“ A plain table became luxurious by virtue of something thrown across it. A tall jar was placed on the painted mantel-piece, and the mantel-piece itself became reminiscent.
After supper, where the scallops did not fail, the four gathered before the grate. A fire crackled, and the slender jar stood above, in reminder of realms where form and color were the only deities. Gard thought Mrs. Mavering had changed. Helen's pallor and thinness did not touch her imperative identity. Mrs. Mavering had changed less in looks than in tone. ”

“ He never let his surroundings grow into him.
Thursday, the day after the battle, the hills, woods, and fields were quiet except for stray picket shooting. The two armies could feel each other. Why they lay all day so near, so quiet, was no business of either's subordinate atoms. Gard felt that he but barely cared, if no more was asked of him and his remnant of thirty than to stay where they were. No doubt they also serve who wait. He could stretch in the sunlight, listen to Mavering's home despatches, choice, flowing, vehement, and supply him with technical language. ”

“ At one side, Maverick and a few kindred spirits seemed trying to outrival one another in profanity and obscenity, while at some distance from them, was a large company of the better class of men, some lounging against trees and rocks, some sitting or lying at full length on the ground, but all listening with unmistakable interest, to a man, gray and grizzled, with a weather-beaten but kindly face, who evidently was entertaining the crowd with tales of his own early life. ”

“ The eyes of Papiol fastened upon the figure which had arrested the attention of Maverick,—a lady of, may-be, forty years, fashionably, but gracefully attired, with olive-brown complexion, hair still glossy black, and attended by a strange gentleman with a brusque and foreign air.
"Who is she?" says Maverick, in a great tremor. "Do the dead come to haunt us?" ”

“ Well, really, Miss Mabin, I can’t rightly tell you what I do think about him. Sometimes I do think he’s off his head altogether; he marches up and down the drawing-room—that’s the room he has taken to himself—by the hour together, going faster and faster, till I listen outside the door wondering if anything is going to happen, and whether he’s going to break out like and do himself a mischief. But if I make an excuse to go in, though his eyes are wide and glaring, so that at the first look he frightens one, yet he always speaks to me quite gently, and says he doesn’t want anything. ”

“ That was Maverley's conclusive thought, as he lay trying to sleep, on the night of the day that had crashed revelation after revelation upon him. Madeline's happiness, her sorrow, his love for her, her hideous fear of him, and his own more hideous fear that had answered it. For how could help—and a help weighted by such fear—reach her? All that she asked of life was to be left alone, and her martyrdom was the facing of a world of eyes that dared not show their shrinking. ”

“ Lady Mabel said: “I suppose it is.”
“Then,” pursued the parson, “the situation is this: Have you secured the dramatisation of your novel?”
“I never gave it a thought,” said Joseph. “In that case, as there is no prospect of our being so accommodated, the position is this: We shall have to haunt you night and day, mainly at night, till you have accommodated us with bodies; we cannot remain as phantom creations of a highly imaginative soul such as is yours, Mr. Leveridge. If you have your rights, so have we. And we insist on ours, and will insist till we are satisfied.” ”

“ It was a novel experience for Maverick to find himself (as he did time and again upon this summer trip in New England) sandwiched, of a Sunday, between his two blooming companions and some sober-sided deacon, in the pew of a country meeting-house. How his friend Papiol would have stared! And the suggestion, coming to him with the buzz of a summer fly through the open windows, did not add to his devotional [Pg 562] sentiment. ”

“ Doesn’t God forgive us our sins, when we repent truly? And isn’t it by His laws that we can’t be numb to any feeling but one all our lives?”
“You are a very powerful advocate, I am sure! Perhaps if you had had a son whose life had been ruined by this woman’s conduct, you would be less enthusiastic.”
These words startled Mabin, and made her look at the harsh visitor in a new light. And she saw, or fancied she saw, in the handsome but stern features of the old lady, a trace of the worn face of her father’s tenant. ”

“ Yet weeks had run by and Maverick had never once broached the question of a return. The truth was, that the new experience was so charming and so engrossing for him, the sweet, intelligent face ever at his side was so full of eager wonder, and he so delightfully intent upon providing new sources of pleasure and calling out again and again the gushes of her girlish enthusiasm, that he shrunk instinctively from a decision in which must be involved so largely her future happiness. ”

“ It seemed to me, at times, that it was not I who wrote, but another Mavis, a happy Mavis, living in a tropical dream, companioned and at peace,—the Mavis I might have been—if—
What tears my guardian angel must have shed! What blotted pages must have soiled the ledger!
I wondered very often, if lies we tell to spare others are counted lies in the heavenly books. After all, surely 179 we are not judged by earthly standards, there must be a larger vision and a more tolerant viewpoint. ”

“ Mavis stared with dull surprise at the rollicking gaiety of the afternoon: its callousness to her anguish irked her. It made her think how unnecessary and altogether bootless was the loss she had sustained. She tried to realise that God had singled her out for suffering as a mark of His favour. But at the bottom of her heart she nourished something in the nature of resentment against the Most High. She knew that, if only life could be restored to the child, she would be base enough to forfeit her chances of eternal life in exchange for the boon. ”

“ Jack followed his friend. Maverick had succeeded in restoring Miss Lawrence to consciousness; but she was now in a burning fever and raging delirium. Outraged nature had at last asserted its sway.
"It is better so, I think," remarked Maverick, in a quiet, decisive tone. "She will have a severe run of fever, for this has been some time coming on; but she has youth and a naturally fine constitution in her favor. I believe she will pull through. But some arrangement must be settled upon. It will not do to take her up-stairs; for the effect upon your mother will be too great a risk. ”

“ We've always felt there was magic right enough, haven't we? Well, now we've come across it, don't let's be silly and pretend. Let's believe in it as hard as ever we can. Mavis—shall we, eh? Believing in things makes them stronger. Aunt Dorothea said that too—you remember."
They stood up in their shoes.
"Shall we tell the others?" Mavis asked.
"We must," said Francis, "it would be so sneakish not to. But they won't believe us. We shall have to be like Cassandra and not mind."
"I only wish I knew who it is we've got to save," said Mavis. ”

“ Mavis covered her eyes with her hands; she prayed heartfully and long for help. Words welled from her being; their burden was:
"I am young; I love life; help me to live, if only for a little while, in this glorious, wonderful world of Thy making. I only ask for bread, for which I am eager to work. Help me! Help me! Help me!"
Mavis uncovered her eyes. The tea-shop, the music, the indefinable odour of women all seemed bizarre after her communion with the Most High. ”

“ Indeed, as she tripped along beside Reuben, it seemed to him that she had never been in a more jocular and vivacious humor. A reason for this (and it is what, possibly, many of our readers may count a very unnatural one) lay in the letter which she had that day received from her father, in which Maverick, in alluding to a possible affaire du cœur in connection with Reuben, had counselled her, with great earnestness, to hold her affections in reserve, and, above all, to control most rigidly any fancy which she might entertain for the son of their friend the Doctor. ”

“ My father's face looked back at me, wonderfully living. Almost it seemed as if the gentle, strong mouth would smile and speak.
"I had it painted before—before the tide turned," said Bill, "from the picture he gave me."
I closed my hands upon the miniature and my eyes against the tears.
"You are very good," I said falteringly. "I—you couldn't have given me anything I could have cared for more."
He stood, his broad shoulders squared against the mantel, and looked at me gravely.
"I hope," he said and stopped. Then, very evenly, he went on, "I hope you will try to be happy here, Mavis." ”

“ Mavis walked to her rooms with a light heart. It was good to tread the hard, firm roads, with their foundation of rock, to meet and be greeted by the ruddy-faced, solidly built Wiltshire men and women, many of whom stopped to stare after the comely, graceful girl with the lithe stride. ”

“ Mavis, although her pride had been cruelly wounded by Miss Potter's careless but base accusation, was touched at the girl's distress; the abasement of the once proud young beauty, the nature of its cause, together with the realisation of the poor girl's desperate case, moved her deeply: she stood irresolute in the middle of the room. The three weeping girls were wondering when Mavis was going to recommence her attack; they little knew that her keen imagination was already dwelling with infinite compassion on the dismal conditions in which the promised new life would come into the world. ”

“ These questions, which had indeed risen in her mind before, but which had now acquired a new force with her extended knowledge, were entirely consistent with the bent of Mabin’s mind. Accustomed from her childhood to consider others rather than herself, and inclined by her own modesty to underrate her deserts as well as her attractions, she found it easy, not indeed to stifle her own feelings, but to control them. ”

“ When I see Mabel Lesly forgiving without reserve, and enduring without complaint, sorrow which would have found me in a very different temper, can you doubt, dear uncle, that, contemplating such rare and beautiful virtues, I have been led to seek the cause, and to find out on what basis they are founded; and, while raising my thoughts to the source and spring of every true virtue, and pouring its healing waters on my soul, must I not shudder to discover there, nothing but pollution, and feel depressed and sad, with the sense of what I am, and what I have been. ”

“ And here Mabin felt her heart grow very tender; she pictured to herself what she would feel, if circumstances were to put Rudolph and herself in the same position toward each other, as were “Mr. Banks” and “Mrs. Dale.”
If she were to have to live within a stone’s throw of him, not only always loving, always longing, but conscious that the same feelings which drew her heart toward him were forever drawing him toward her. ”

“ The human countenance seldom appears to advantage when partially concealed; and Mabel imagined many additional horrors as she first saw the black, roving eyes and the expression of wildness as the savage countenance was revealed, as it might be, inch by inch; but when the entire head was raised above the floor, a second and a better look assured our heroine that she saw the gentle, anxious, and even handsome face of June. ”

“ But at sixty a man blows bubbles no longer—except that of his own conceit. The heart of Maverick was not dead in him; a kiss of Adèle wakened a thrilling, delicious sensation there, of which he had forgotten his capability. ”

“ Why, one little word in that handsome, old man's ear, would make him shiver, and tremble, and look the coward, as Mabel would never do, woman though she was—the one word death; just speak it! Mark how the color will flee from his frightened face! Speak that same word to her, and you will see her features, so sad before, light up with a pearly glow, like that shed through an alabaster lamp when its perfumed oil is alight. ”

“ Adèle made no reply,—too wise now for that; but she winced, and bit her lip severely, as the irate spinster "gave Miss Maverick to understand that an intercourse which might possibly be agreeable to her French associations could never be tolerated at the home of Dr. Johns. For herself, she had a reputation for propriety to sustain; and while Miss Maverick made a portion of her household, she must comply with the rules of decorum; and if Miss Maverick were ignorant of those rules, she had better inform herself." ”

“ He laughed. "In spite of your seclusion, my dear, you are a true woman, for you will not allow even the landscape to be complimented when you are present."
"Human beings are so much nicer than landscape," she pouted.
"One is, at least. I wonder who she can be."
"Me," said Mavis triumphantly.
"How clever of you to guess that, my angel."
Mavis flung up her arms with a silvery laugh. "I am a fairy to-night, and no angel. They are stiff things with goose wings."
"Rhyme and reason both together," said Gerald, sitting down on a mossy stone fronting a smooth greensward. ”

“ The rush of the current, tortured by hidden rocks, sent the little craft onward, as if it had been a dead leaf cast into the eddy. Mabel liked the danger and the tumult. The rising wind blew in her face. The waters sparkled and dashed around her. The frail oars bent and quivered in her hands. It was something to [51] brave and fight against; but for this scope of action the new anguish that had swept through the soul of that woman must have smothered her. ”