Mavis of Green Hill

by Faith Baldwin

  CHAPTER XVIII

  A day or so went by, devoid of any particular incident. If Bill and Ispoke to each other at all, it was to discuss our plans for leavingCuba. The Goodriches were returning shortly from Europe: Father sent ahomesick-for-me cable from Green Hill: the weather was beginning togrow very warm: in short, a hundred and one things warned us that theSpring were better spent in the North. We fixed our departure for aday not two weeks distant, and Bill went into Havana to book ourpassage. Even in public we had dropped the pretence of marital banter.But Wright and Mercedes, apparently absorbed in each other, did notnotice: or, if they did, kept each his and her own counsel, as far asI knew.

  The lazy, sun-steeped days seemed interminable. I had, luckily, anumber of things to arrange--another trunk to buy and some sewing toaccomplish, with Annunciata's help. And Bill's obvious preoccupationcould easily have been laid to the growing unrest in Guayabal. Mr.Crowell, an anxious, nervous, but charming person, had been more thanonce at "The Palms" to discuss the situation. If it had not been formy husband's sense of responsibility towards the Reynolds, I thinkthat we should have packed up and left Cuba in short order. But he wasanxious to stay on for a time longer and see Silas, and what men wereloyal to their American employer, through what he hoped would prove apassing phase of revolt--or so he said.

  As for me, I went through the days, weighted under a burden ofuncertainty and a sorrow without name. Father's miniature, lying openon my night-table, seemed to reproach me: seemed, too, at times, toreproach himself, which was even harder to bear. "I have done my humanbest for you," the gentle-strong mouth seemed to say. "I have neverwanted anything but your happiness, my little Mavis." And the kind,humorous eyes added, "Is it my fault that I must hear you sobbingthrough these long, unhappy nights?"

  No, not his fault. Whose, then? I dared not ask the picture in thelittle leather case, for I was afraid it might answer.

  "It is _his_ fault, Father," I would defend myself mutely. "We mighthave been content, even happy, in a friendly way, if it had not beenfor him."

  "It was not for Friendship alone that I gave you to him, Daughter,"the answer would come, "but for something dearer, bigger, deeper. Youwere so young and so alien from the world. I had thought that the manto whom we both owe everything would be the one to help you throughall that first difficult time: to teach you, finally, Life's loveliestlesson. And I had hoped, prayed even, that you would one day come tobe to him what your Mother was to me.... There was not much time," thebeloved voice went on, very sadly, "for me to make a decision. It washard to feel I might have to leave you ... alone ... unsheltered....How hard, you will never know ... unless some day you are called uponto leave a child of your own...."

  "Father!" I begged--"Please--"

  "If the mistake was mine," said the voice which still seemed to comefrom that unsmiling miniature, "I can only ask your forgiveness,Mavis. Even your Father, who loves you beyond all earthly things, waswrong to try and shape your destiny."

  "No--no--" I sobbed.

  I laid the minature on the table again. The voice in my heart hadceased to speak: There were only the pictured eyes, looking into minefrom a little leather case. But for a long time, Father had talked tome so. I read between the lines of his letters and prayed that heshould not read between the lying phrases of mine. Was it all lies? "Iam happy," I told him again and again: and he, who knew me so well,was convinced, perhaps because, in a certain, curious sense, that muchwas true.

  Underneath bewilderment, misunderstanding, the pinpricks of pride, andthe smart of old resentments, I _had_ been happy. It was as if Iwalked on a strange, new road, toward some unknown goal, someunguessed shelter. There were turnings in the path: dark places:uneven stretches: but always a bird sang, sweetly, in thedistance,--the sun cleared the clouds and Adventure waited for me justaround the corner. But lately, the ground had fallen away from undermy very feet, and left me standing at the edge of an abyss, lookingacross a chasm of despair, to the far country I would never reach....

  Mercedes knocked at my door, and came in.

  "You've been away so long," she said, reproachfully. "Wright is goingto mass with me, in the Church at Ceube. Won't you come too, Mavis?"

  It's Sunday then, I thought, wondering how the days had passed,nameless and unheeded by me--every one bringing me nearer--

  "Sure you want me?" I asked, and at her assurance, I got my hat andset out with her and Wright in the car.

  Bill drove us down: he didn't come in, but went about other businessafter he had left us at the little church, solidly built of time andweather stained adobe, red-roofed, and squatly towered.

  The small room was filled with people. We squeezed into an alreadyovercrowded pew, and kneeling, I was almost drugged with the clouds ofincense, and the hot, close air.

  At the altar, the red-robed priest, very old and frail, intoned theceremonial service. A full-grown altar-"boy," black as his robes, andslippered, swung the heavy censer, and looked over the audience forpossible disturbances. They occurred more than once. The brown babiescooed or cried, according to their several temperaments; a mongrel dogran in and out of the pews, at a late-comer's heels; and here andthere, a black-eyed girl looked over her shoulder at some responsivecavalier who stood or knelt with the many worshippers lining thewalls.

  There was an amazing, almost tangible spirit in the place: a minglingof childlike devotion and equally childlike theatricalism. The peoplecame to the service, like children to a parent, wholly natural, whollysimple, and yet not wholly devoid of a certain dramatic instinct and,above all, keenly sensitive to the sweet-scented vapor, the well-wornlace and vestments of the priest, the solemn intonation of the Mass.

  Bright-winged birds flew astonishingly in and out of theopen-shuttered windows: the consumptive organ wheezed and muttered:the voices of the people rose with a grave eagerness upon the heavyair. And here and there an adventurous ray of sunshine fell alike onold and young heads, lingered on the gay colors of the girls'dresses, slid like a finger of gold over the red-robed priest at thelittle altar, and danced across the heavy, smoky rafters of theceiling.

  Mercedes, her lovely face hidden, told her silver and pearl rosary.Wright, after his first moment of embarrassment and instinctive recoilfrom so much massed humanity, was engrossed in her, in hissurroundings. I imagined I saw a picture shaping--a little moretender, a little more serious than anything he had done yet. And I,kneeling in the stuffy chapel with an alien people of a differentexpression of Faith, felt for the first time in many, many hours, asense of release, of peace, a cooling touch on my hot and achingheart.

  Mass over, the people poured, laughing, talking, gesticulating outinto the thick, yellow sunshine. The half-flirtations which haddeflected the thoughts of some of the younger worshippers, wererenewed and pursued. A young mother sat on the steps of the church andbared her brown breast to her baby's fumbling lips. She looked adeep-eyed Madonna, as she sat there, unconscious of the people aroundher, a white mantilla framing her face. Her husband, a clean-featuredman, taller than the average Cuban, stood behind her, smoking, hiscoarse white trousers dazzling in the sunshine, his bright purple"American" shirt worn like a smock, after the "dress" regulations ofGuayabal on Sunday.

  Bill drove up presently, and as usual, the straggling childrenclustered around the car. He was always dear with children--white orblack, brown or yellow. They were instantly his friends.

  Wiggles, riding proudly in the front seat, created quite a sensation,and Mercedes, climbing in to hold him in her pretty, primrose-dimitylap, had great difficulty in restraining him.

  "Where is his collar, Mavis?" she asked, clutching the frantic dog toher demure, white frills.

  "He was uncomfortable with it, in the heat," I answered. "Weren't you,Wigglesworth? So I took it off--"

  The car gave a sudden leap--and I knew that Bill had been listeningfor my answer; knew that he knew that I could not throw innocentWiggles away, but that, when the mask had fallen from Richard Warren,I had, in a fit of
anger, taken away the too-significant collar. Itwas in my trunk--but sometimes I wondered what had happened to mylucky charm of cool, green jade--flung from my window in a moment ofpure rage.

  Once, I had looked for it--the day after Mercedes and I had siesta-edin the palm-grove--not since.

  When we had arrived home, Wright drew me mysteriously aside.

  "Let me see those last two poems of yours again, will you, Mavis?" hesaid. "One of the men I was at college with wants me to go in with himon a book-shop and publishing venture--you know, odd books, quaintlybound, and all that sort of thing. He has his eye on a place inGreenwich Village, and just the right, short-haired, but delusivelyshrewd girl to run it--the shop end, I mean."

  "What do you want the verses for?" I asked suspiciously.

  Wright grinned.

  "If I am to be the Angel in this affair," he said, "how could I employcelestial qualities better than to boost my friends--and incidentally,myself? We can collect your poems, publish them in a sufficientlybizarre edition to attract attention--and, without letting Mr. JohnDenton's solid and conservative firm into the secret--you can astonishyour husband, by Christmas, say, with a book of your own."

  "But," I argued, "they're not good enough--"

  "They're good enough for me," said Wright magnificently, "and it willbe rather fun, having a business of this sort to play with. It's oneway of revenging myself on those beastly tin-pans."

  I grew just a little excited, picturing Bill's astonishment. And Iwould not be there to hear his criticism. I had a dozen verses or morewhich Wright had not yet seen: the best, I thought, of all. And, ofthe poems I had styled "Cuban Pastels," the two he had just spoken ofheaded the group.

  1 HAVANA HARBOR

  Hued as a peacock's plumage, wide unfurled, The sea dreams, smiling. Far off, toylike, frail A boat drifts to the blue edge of the world, The brilliant sunlight glinting from it's sail. An idle cruiser, sinister and grey, Drifts, out of tune with sunlight and with dreams, While, on the city-wall, the rainbow-spray Scatters to crystal, shot with opal gleams. The shore curves tender as a clasping arm-- Like cardboard structures from a clever hand, Bright in the sun, and touched with old-world charm, Unreal, the ragged lines of houses stand. Dim with the Past, a fortress close-guards yet A city whose once-fettered feet are free, To wear, serene as some white-limbed coquette, The gold-and-sapphire anklet of the Sea.

  2 MORRO CASTLE

  An old fortress, wrapped in magic sleep, The city's crouching watchdog, fronts the sea, And locks stone lips on tales of dungeon-keep; On legends of dead terrors, buried deep; And gives no hint of once-screamed, strangled plea, Choked to swift silence in the torture cell, In ages dark with bloody sweat of pain.... Ah! if the Morro ghosts could walk again, What whispered horror could those bruised throats tell, Wrung by the cruel, long hands of Ancient Spain!

  I gave the verses to Wright, after luncheon,--all of them. He could dowith them as he liked, I said. Revise, correct, re-group. I was tiredof singing songs, but I did not tell him that. In my heart I thought Iwould be glad to have my verses, bound and shut in a little book. Theywould remind me of Cuba, and of other things, when I was too old, tooarmoured by time, to feel the hurt of remembering. I would keep myDiary, too, against that distant day. Time, I had read, heals all. Itwas pleasant to think that sometime the ache in my breast would bestilled. But I thought perhaps I would miss it, it would grow to bepart of me after a while--

  Mercedes, looking in on me from the flowers screening the verandahwhere I sat, asked coaxingly,

  "Coming walking with us, Mavis!"

  "Us?" I inquired.

  "Wright, and Billy, and me."

  I shook my hand.

  "I think not," I answered. "I have some letters to write."

  "Billy said you wouldn't come," said she, pouting.

  "Did he?"

  For a moment I was inclined to reconsider, but the delight of provingmy husband wrong would not have atoned for an hour of his society. Andwell I knew that Wright and Mercedes would, eventually, wander off orget surprisingly lost, or accomplish one of the fifty odd things whichthey managed so ingenuously, and which would rid them of even the mostfriendly chaperonage.

  Mercedes waited.

  "Bill is right," I said, "as always. I think I'll not go, Mercedes, ifyou and Wright don't mind."

  "Not at all," she said generously, "only," and here her voice grewwistful, "only the time is getting so short, Mavis. In two days I'llbe going to Havana for the Mendez dance--and to stay. And then, beforewe know it, you will be going home again."

  "But you're following shortly," I reminded her.

  "With my family!" she added.

  "Won't your Mother consider lending you to me for a while this summer?"I asked. "I shall be--" and almost I had said "so very lonely" beforeI thought. I stopped.

  "Shall be what?" asked Mercedes, coming up the steps and dropping tomy feet, on a crimson cushion.

  "So very glad to see you," I answered, and truly.

  "I wonder," said Mercedes.

  "That's not very nice of you," I accused her.

  "I didn't mean--what you said," she hastened to explain. "I onlymeant--I wonder if Wright would wait over and go up with us? It is sodull," she went on, "just travelling with the family, and Father likeshim so much. What do you think, Mavis?"

  Mavis thought that without Wright's pleasant, obtuse presence, thathomeward voyage would be a nightmare. But she did not say so.

  "I'm sure he'd love to," I answered, smiling into the pretty, eagerface, "especially if you ask him--very nicely."

  Mercedes laid her flushed cheek for a minute against my knees. Throughthe thin fabric of my gown I could feel the warmth of it.

  "You like Wright, don't you?" she asked, a little anxiously. "And he'sBilly's best friend--?"

  I put my hand on her smooth, heavy hair. A scent, as of youth andflowers and sunshine came to me from the polished coils of it. Wrightwas a very fortunate young person.

  "I'm very fond of him, Silly," said I, "and Bill adores him. There, isthat recommendation enough?"

  She jumped up, in a whirl of skirts, and kissed me impetuously: heldme a moment in the clasp of her strong, young arms, and then, her highheels clicking on the tiles, ran into the house.

  "More than enough," she called over her shoulder.

  But when, charmingly hatted, dragging the point of a butterflysunshade after her, she went down the path between Bill and Wright,there was no sign of her recent agitation on that smooth, creamycheek.

  Left alone, I sighed a little, and looked ahead. They had fallen inlove so wholeheartedly, so gaily, those two. I pictured them, if allwent well, going through life like the Princess and Prince in thefairy-tale, living "happily forever after." She could love, I knew,that feather-brained, big-hearted little friend of mine. She wasyoung, too, younger than her years, an astonishing thing in Southernwomen. She would be easily assimilated, would adapt herselfgracefully. And it was patent that she thought Wright head andshoulders above the average cut of men. She had told me so, withoutknowing it, over and over again. And Wright, diffident, sensitiveWright, under his absurdities and his worldly airs? He would cherishher, I knew, and be good to her all his life: invest her with anever-failing glamour, make her his model and his sovereign lady:write madrigals about her: worship at her tiny feet. It was a verypretty little Romance....

  They would never have pain in their love, I thought: never knowundreamed of depths of agony and self-knowledge: never know secretshrines despoiled, the altars overthrown, desecrated....

  I heard Peter's voice in the living room, and Sarah's asking where Iwas. I called to them and went in.

  It was strange, I thought, as I discussed with Sarah the preliminariesof packing, how much I seemed to know about Love. I, who had neverknown, nor felt any save my Father's and that of my few, placidfriends ... and per
haps that Love that is all dream-stuff. And in myheart was a voice which questioned and which I dared not answer. "Howdo you _know_?" it said to me. "_How do you know?_"

  I closed my ears to it and drew Peter into my lap.

  "Will you be glad to go home?" I asked him.

  "Well," said Peter, considering, "there's--Silas."

  "So there is," I assented.

  "Couldn't he come with us?" asked Peter, coaxingly. "He could sleep inmy room--"

  I looked at Sarah, for appreciation of this. Lean, long Silas lodgingin Peter's small nest. And I looked twice. Sarah, her head bent overan armful of my gowns, was--_blushing_! I couldn't believe my eyes. Imight have fancied the Rock of Gibraltar moved to such soft symptomsof complexion, before Sarah.

  "Why, Sarah!" I said, in amazement.

  The difficult red crept up to her honest eyes. She raised them and metmine, and what I saw there was very beautiful.

  I put Peter off my lap.

  "Run out and play for a while, dear," I said, "before tea."

  And then,

  "Sarah?"

  "He's a good man, Miss Mavis," she answered, clutching the gowns toher, ruinously--my careful Sarah! "And we're neither of us so young,nor so flighty that we wouldn't know our own minds. Mr. Reynolds haswritten him that he has a buyer for the place, and we thought thatwhen things was settled down here, Silas could come up North to GreenHill--and--"

  "But, Sarah," I cried out, in childish dismay, "I can't lose you--Ican't--"

  She put the gowns on a nearby chair and touched my hair with herfaithful old hand.

  "Indeed, Miss Mavis," she said earnestly, "not for a hundred Silaseswould I leave you: But Silas spoke to the Doctor about a place--andthe Doctor said he needed a man to drive for him, and so, if you wantus, we could both stay on. No one could take care of you," she said,jealously, "except me."

  "Does the Doctor know--about you?" I asked.

  "Silas didn't tell him--and I was going to wait until we got home. Itcome all at once," she explained, "but Silas thinks maybe he'sguessed--"

  And I had been so blind--so blind to the times when Sarah walked outwith Silas, for "a breath of air": so blind to the long silences inthe kitchen of an evening, under Norah's cordial, Irish eyes.

  "It's wonderful!" I said, at last. "Silas is a lucky man. I'm awfullyhappy for you, Sarah."

  "You ain't angry?" she asked timidly. "You don't think it'sfoolishness--at my age?"

  "I think it's beautiful," I said, and as she turned to go, I put out ahand to draw her near, to kiss her. The only mother I had ever known,faithful, self-sacrificing, tender--I was glad that her old age wouldbe sheltered and made happy for her.

  After she had gone, I sat for a long time in silence. The voices ofthe others, their steps on the path, aroused me. And, as I went outobediently to Wright's hail, I thought of Mercedes--and nowSarah--each with her love-story and her pride: the enchanting, spoiledyoung daughter of America and Spain with her poet, and the elderlywoman, austere as her own New England, her shoulders bent in myservice, with a good man of her own kind--. Well, Father was left tome, thank God--but--

  I felt terribly lonely.