Chapter XV

The little girl Rachel at the age of six was able to take interest in everything that happened, and to be a real companion who loved to help her mother at any important task. Thus one winter evening between tea and supper, when Mavis was most importantly engaged, she sat up late by special license and gave her company and aid in the little room behind the kitchen.

"Now, see if you can find the blotting-paper over there on daddy's desk. Quietly, my darling. Very quietly--because we mustn't wake Billy."

Billy, the little boy, was asleep in his cradle, near, but not too near, the cheerful fire; a bluish flicker that reminded one of the frost out of doors showed intermittently among the yellow and red flames; the wick of the lamp on the round table burned clearly; and in the mingling lamplight and firelight the whole room looked delightfully cozy and homelike. Mavis, with a body just pleasantly tired and a mind still comfortably active, paused before starting her labor in order luxuriously to feel the peaceful charm that was being shed forth by all her surroundings.

More and more the very heart of their home life seemed to locate itself in this room, and so every day additional memories and associations wove themselves about the objects it contained. Rachel, young as she was, showed a marked predilection for it, loving it better than all other rooms. From the dawn of intelligence she had been fascinated by the two guns and the brass powder-flasks that hung high over the chimney-place; her first climbings and tumblings had been performed on the three steps that led to the kitchen; and she had addled her tender brains, as well as inflamed the natural greed which is so pardonable in infants, by what was to her a sort of differential calculus before she learned to discriminate nicely among the various jams kept by Mummy in the big cupboard.

Nearly all the furniture, as well as the two guns, had belonged to Mr. Bates. It was solid, and very old--a tall-boy with a drawer that, opening out, made a writing-desk; a bureau with a latticed glass front; three chairs of the Chippendale farmhouse order; and one vast chair, covered with leather and adorned with nails, that had probably been dozed in by the hall-porter of some great mansion more than a century ago. Here and there Mavis had of course dabbed her small prettinesses--blue china and a clock on the mantel-shelf, colored cushions, photographs of the children, views of Rodchurch High Street, the Chase, Rodhaven Pier; and the old and the new, the useful and the ornamental, alike whispered to her of fulfilled desires, gratified fancies, and William Dale.

It was her husband's room. Perhaps that formed the real source of all its charms, the essence or base of attraction that lay deep beneath visual presentations of chairs and fire-gleamings, or associations of ideas, or memories of past happiness. Those were his books, behind the latticed glass--the _Elocution Manual_, the _Elements of Rhetoric_, the ten-volumed _People's Encyclopedia_, that he had read, and still read so assiduously. It was here that he ate, drank, and mused. Here he did all of his work that wasn't real office work. Here he received such visitors as head coachmen, stud-grooms, and the huntsmen.

In the cupboard with the jam-pots, there were two or three boxes of cigars, the famous sloe gin, and other liqueurs, for the entertainment of such highly esteemed visitors; and so long as one of them occupied the colossal armchair, her husband was quite a different Dale. He was then such a much better listener than usual, so quick to see a joke and so easy to be tickled by it, so debonair that he would swallow almost insulting criticism of his favorite politicians. As she thought of these things her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted mirthfully. She never asked any questions as to Dale's more secret methods of dealing with customers' servants. Obviously he got on well with them; and one might be quite certain that he did not offer any material compliments that were either traditionally illegitimate or open in the smallest degree to a suspicion of corrupt purpose.

And she thought admiringly that her man was really a very wonderful man. Though so candid and straight, he could be grandly silent; he told his womankind all that he considered it good for them to know, and the rest he kept to himself; he had that quality of rulership without which manhood always seems deficient.

"Mummy," said Rachel, "I do believe Mary is reading aloud."

"Is she, darling? Yes, I think she is."

Through the kitchen door one could hear a monotonous murmur.

"D'you think she's reading fairy tales?"

"Perhaps. Would you like to listen to her?"

"Oh, no. I'd sooner stay and help you, Mummy."

"Then so you shall, my angel; and I thank you for preferring my company."

Mavis, with the little girl at her knee, got to work. She had purchased a large scrap-album, and was now to begin putting in her scraps. For a long time she had collected interesting extracts from the newspapers, more especially portions of old numbers of the _Rodhaven Courier_ which contained her husband's name.

"Here, Rachel, we'll commence with this;" and she started the book with a long account of the ceremonial opening of the Barradine Orphanage. The report of a speech by "Mr. Dale of Vine-Pits Farm" at a political meeting was the second item, and other gems followed fast.

Rachel assisted from time to time, by twice upsetting the paste pot, tearing a good many cuttings, and finally by tilting the heavy album off Mummy's lap to the floor.

But Mavis thought all these actions rather spirited and charming than maladroit and annoying. They proved that Rachel was trying hard to be of use, and her too rapid and abrupt gestures were a pleasing evidence that the little creature possessed a vivacious and not a sluggish disposition. However, the crash of the album on the floor had awakened Billy, who was now crying lustily; and Rachel's license having long since expired, Mavis decided to send both her treasures to bed. Rachel resisted the edict, and, presently conducted up-stairs by Mary, bellowed more loudly than her brother; indeed for a little while the house was filled with the harsh sound of squalling. Yet this noise, though distressing, was as musical as harps and lutes to the mother's ears; and while old Mrs. Goudie in the kitchen was saying: "They children want a smart popping to learn them on'y to squawk when there's reason for squawking," Mavis was thinking: "Poor darlings, I'd go up and kiss them again, if Mary didn't always quiet them down quicker than I can."

Alone with her newspaper snippets, Mavis did more reading than pasting. "Heroic Rescue at Otterford Mill"--that was the description of how Will saved good-for-nothing Abraham Veale. She knew it almost by heart, but she had to read it again. "Brave Deed at Manninglea Cross Station"--that was something that made her feel faint every time she thought of it, and she trembled now as she read in the snippet of how there had been a frightened dog on the line between the platforms, and how Will had jumped down in front of the approaching train and whisked the dog out of danger just in time.

She folded her hands, puckered her forehead, and passed into a reverie about him. Combining with her intense admiration, there was a great horror of all this reckless courage. He would not have been so foolhardy years ago. It was against the principles that he had once laid down as limiting the risks that a brave man may run. It indicated a change in him, a change that she had never pondered on till now. She thought of him fighting the wind on top of their rick, and of several other incidents unchronicled by the press--of his going with the police at Old Manninglea when there was the bad riot, of his joining the Crown keepers when they went out to catch the poachers, of his wild performance when Mr. Creech's bull got loose. Goring bulls, bludgeoning men, tempest and flood--wherever and whatever the danger, he went straight to it. But it was not fair to her and the babes. His thrice precious life! And she grew cold as she thought that an accident--like a curtain descending when a stage play is over--might some day end all her joy.

Then she thought once more of that dark period of their dual existence; and it was the last time that she was ever capable of thinking of it seriously and with any real concentration. Had that trouble left any permanent mark on him? Her own suffering had left no mark on her. It was gone so entirely that, as well as seeming incredible, it seemed badly invented, silly, preposterous. All that remained to her was just this one firm memory, that, strange or not, there had truly once been a time when his arms were not her shelter, and she dared not look into his face.

But he was different from her; with a vastly more capacious brain, in which there was such ample room that perhaps the present did not even impinge upon the past, much less drive it out altogether. She who in the beginning had tacitly agreed with those who considered her the obvious superior now felt humbly pleased in recognizing that he was of grander, finer, and more delicate stuff than herself. And for the first and last time she was assailed by a disturbing doubt. Was he completely happy even now? He loved her, he loved his children, he loved his successful industry; yet sometimes when she found him alone his face was almost as somber as it had ever been.

And those bad dreams of his still continued. At first, when things were all in jeopardy, it had seemed not unnatural that the troubles of the day should break his rest at night; but why should he dream now, when he was prosperous and without a single anxiety to distress him? Did he in sleep go back to that old storm of anger, jealousy, and grief about which he never thought during his waking hours?

And again Mavis was actuated all unconsciously by the elemental selfishness that mingles with our joy. When we are happy we want others to be happy too, we can not brook their not being so; even transient darkness in those we love seems inimical to the light that is burning so cheerfully in ourselves. Mavis ceased to trouble herself with questions, and forgot that they remained unanswered.

When Dale came in she was, however, more than ordinarily sweet to him, waiting on him, bringing the supper dishes, not sitting down until he was served, and watching him while he ate. She told him that she had been reading about the dog on the railway line, and that he was not to do such things. If he ever again felt such a wild impulse, he was to stifle it immediately by remembering his wife and bairns.

"D'you understand, Will? We won't have it--and we all three think you ought to be ashamed of yourself for not knowing better. You're not a boy."

"No," he said, "I shall be forty-two next year. Look here," and he pointed to his temples. "Look at my gray hair."

"I can't see it."

"But it's there, my dear, all the same. I am beginning to turn toward the sear and yellow leaf, as Shakespeare puts it."

She admired the easy way in which he quoted Shakespeare, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Indeed, all through supper she was admiring him. She thought how beautifully he spoke, expressing himself so elegantly, and with tones in his voice that every day seemed to sound a little more cultivated. At first after their arrival at Vine-Pits, being plunged again into the midst of purely rustic talk, he had fallen back in regard to his diction. Instinctively he reverted to the dialect that had been his own, and that was being used by everybody about him; but now one might say that he really had two languages--his rough patter for the yard and the fields, and his carefully-measured phrasing for the home, office, and upper circles. She understood that his constant reading and his unflagging desire for self-improvement were telling rapidly; and with a touch of sadness she wondered if, passing on always, he would finally leave her quite behind.

No, while life lasted, he would hold to her. He would never shake her off now. Even if she were old and ugly, useless to him, a dead-weight upon his ascending progress, he would be true to her now. Even if his love died, the memory of it would keep him still hers. And she thought of the pity in him, as well as the strength. The man who could not resist the appeal of a poor little stray dog would not break faith with the mother of his children; and she thought, "Yes, whatever I say to him, I know really and truly that it was a nobler, better thing to risk all than to allow even a dog to perish. And I love him for not having hesitated then, even when I pray him not to do it again."

Looking at him, she saw the gray hair that she had just now denied; and to her eyes these gray feathers at each side of the forehead not only increased his dignity, but gave him a fresh charm. The gray hair made him somehow more romantic. In her eyes his face was always growing more beautiful, always refining itself, always losing something that had been rather coarsely massive and gaining something that was new, spiritualized, and subtle.

"What are you examining me like that for, Mav? A penny for your thoughts."

"Shall I tell you truly?" and she laughed. "I was thinking if your looks continue to improve at this rate all the girls will get falling in love with you."

"Go along with you."