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MAVIS OF GREEN HILL
BY FAITH BALDWIN (MRS. HUGH HAMLIN CUTHRELL)
BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1921, BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (INCORPORATED)
_To_ JEAN WICK _In Gratitude and Affection_
MAVIS OF GREEN HILL
CHAPTER I
GREEN HILL, June
A new doctor has arrived in Green Hill!
Sarah told me so this morning when she brought in my breakfast. Sheset the tray down with an agitated thump, and after her strong armshad raised me a little higher among the pillows, she stepped back,folded her hands beneath her apron, and fixed me with a portentouseye.
"Now do try and relish your breakfast, Miss Mavis," she coaxed,"there's a good girl!"
An undercurrent of excitement colored her tone. I looked upon her withsuspicion. But I know my Sarah. Like Fate, and the villagefire-company, she is not to be hurried. Very casually, I reached formy glass of milk. Years of lying comparatively flat on a useless backtend to the development of patience as a necessity.
"What time is it?" I inquired conversationally.
"Past nine."
I set the glass aside, and bit reflectively into a crisp triangle oftoast. Since I've become so clever at eating and drinking, there's asense of adventure about these commonplace functions which no wholeperson could ever comprehend. Sarah, busying herself with details ofwindow-shades and counterpanes, watching me meanwhile from the cornerof her eye, waited until I had turned indifferently to my pillowsagain, before making the following terse but thrilling remark.
"Your pink rose-bush's come into blossom, Miss Mavis."
Here was news indeed! My unconcern took unto itself wings and flewaway.
"Not really!" I cried, "Oh, Sarah, how perfectly darling of her towaken so early!"
Sarah, accustomed to my extravagant fashion of endowing all growingthings with distinct personalities, nodded gravely. And then, with allthe majesty of Jove--if one may picture that deity as female, fifty,and New England incarnate--she launched her thunderbolt of Green Hillgossip.
"That young doctor--him that was to come from the city to help DoctorMcAllister with his patien's--he's here!"
There was more truth than enunciation in Sarah's neglect of that final"t" in patients. Our village doctor is long on wisdom, but short oftemper. I reached out for the morning paper, lying on my bedsidetable, and rustled it in dismissal.
"How interesting!" I murmured, successfully concealing any concern atall.
Sarah swooped down upon my tray and bore it to the door, in a mannerwhich carried conviction. But we can deceive each other so little,Sarah and I.
"Come last night," she volunteered, "from New York. And every girl inGreen Hill is furbishing up her Sunday clothes, so Sammy said."
Sammy, surnamed Simpson, the freckled-faced Mercury who delivers themilk, and is in close touch with all the divers heart-throbs of GreenHill, holds a sentimental, if unacknowledged appeal for Sarah. Acentury or two ago, Sammy's father, in those days a gay andunencumbered spark, courted my Sarah, so runs the story, in the publicmanner of Green Hill. And Sarah, difficult to believe though it be,showed him no disfavor. There was, however, an obstacle to eventualunion, in the person of Sarah's invalid mother, a querulous,ninety-pound tyrant. Upon this rock the frail bark of the Simpsonaffections shattered. This is of history, the most ancient, but hadthe far-reaching result that Sarah, whose lot seems ever cast amongthe stricken, now waits on me heart, hand, and foot, while over theSimpson hearthstone another goddess presides, and rigidly too, if onecan judge from the harrassed expressions of Sammy, Sr., Sammy, Jr.,and all the other innumerable Simpson olive branches.
But to return to our muttons--the palpitating girlhood of Green Hill.
"Silly geese!" I commented unkindly.
Sarah from the doorway looked as cryptic as is consistent with thefeatures Nature had given her.
"Oh, I don't know!" she answered with spirit, and an unconsciouseffect of argot, "In Green Hill, Miss Mavis, men is scarce!"
Here was truth! Mentally I echoed, "They is!" and Sarah, readingratification in my silence, achieved a disappearance of my tray, andreturned to the attack.
"Sammy says--he was down to the station last night when the ten-sixcome in--seems like," she digressed, "he's always hanging around thestation since Rosie Allan's been telegraph operator there--"
"Rosie is a very pretty girl, Sarah," I chided gently.
"Pretty is as pretty does!" said Sarah, in irrefutable self-defense."Limb, I call her--bold as brass! But then," she added in her mostpleasant tone, "Sammy was never raised to know better." And she lookedat me with that unique light in her eyes which never fails them of themention of any Simpson delinquency, however slight.
"Sammy says," she continued, bound to pursue the subject to the bitterend, "that the new doctor is a likely-looking young fellow, and seemswell off."
At this juncture, I opened my paper with an air of finality.
"If this stranger in our midst is, as you infer, young, handsome, andwealthy," I remarked, "why then, in Heaven's name, has he descendedupon Green Hill, Sarah?"
I hate handsome men. They are always so much vainer than women.
Sarah, accustomed as she is to my intemperate habits of speech,regarded me with a somewhat shocked air.
"Sammy says," she quoted--and here the conversational cat leaped fromthe bag--"that he come down here because he is suffering from nerves!"
The door closed after her, but her contempt lingered, almost tangibly,in the room; and I smothered my laughter in the lavender-scentedpillows.
But Sarah had given me something to think about. I have known so fewmen, young ones, that perhaps I am given to speculating about themeven more than the average girl. They're such an unknown quality. Andcertainly the one or two who have been escorted to my presence havenot shown to good advantage. The healthy man reacts unfavorably toinvalid feminism. They are bored, or too sympathetic; they speak inwhispers, or in too cheery tones; they shuffle their great feet; andescape, eventually, with a sigh of relief. And I am impatient of them,of their bulk and their strength, and the arrogance which is part andparcel of their sex. Perhaps it is because I am handicapped,circumstantially out of the running, so as to speak, that an"eligible" male always arouses in me a feeling of antagonism. And yetwith not unremarkable inconsistency, I always wish, wistfully, deepdown, that I might make, sometime, a man friend of my own generation.But I can't. Something in me shuts doors and bolts them in anystrange, masculine face.
A breeze stole delicately through my open window and ruffled my hair,luring my eyes to the out-of-door world where young Summer goeswalking today, clad in blue and green. Not far off, the hills whichgive our town its pretty name, rise mistily, like altars. Just beyondthat tall tangle of oak trees, a little river comes singing from itssource. In winter I miss its friendly voice, yet I am more in sympathywith it then, for ice-bound, its bright limbs fettered, its dancingstilled, it seems kin to such as I. But for me there will never dawn aspringtide, with the prison keys in her green girdle and rosy handsoutstretched to unlock the door.
Year in, year out, my bed is always close to the windows. All ofout-doors that
I may see and hear, I must have for my own. I loveevery glimpse and scent and sound of it. Only the aggressive shriek ofthe train at the distant crossing makes me shrink and shudder. Thatwas the last thing I heard--a whistle at a crossing--before the daycoach which was carrying me home from a happy visit plunged over theembankment.
Eleven years ago! It seems like many centuries. Yet I remember it as Iremember yesterday--that crash before oblivion. I can remember eventhe thrill of twelve-year old pride in the dignity of that fifty-milejourney, made quite alone. It was the beginning of a longer journey,where the milestones are the years; a journey painful and rebellious,marked with many stations of weariness, and black tunnels of agony; ajourney which, despite all the loving care that surrounds me, I mustmake in isolation of body and spirit. Oh, little blue diary, it iswell that I may shut away my moods and my mutiny between your covers!No one in all this house must be made sadder because of me. Notfather, unfailing playmate, and tender; not Sarah, whose silentaffection is like protecting arms about me. There's a great shaft ofsunlight quivering across what I've just written. Incongruous,somehow. And I'm out of tune with the June weather and the birds justbeyond my windows.
I must ask Sarah to bring me my first rose from my Sleeping Beautybush. First roses are always the sweetest--like the kiss of PrinceCharming.
I wonder what the nervous doctor's name is--poor Sarah!
June paid me a visit this afternoon while I slept. She was reluctantto waken me, but left me her prettiest card. The first roses from mybush! They have been happily translated to a vase beside me, as Iwrite. Father brought them upstairs with him when he came in for tea.
"Did you kiss her hands and tell her how sorry I would be to missher?" I asked him soberly.
Father looked alarmed.
"Whose hands?" he began.
"Who has called on us today?"
"Mrs. Withers!" he answered, suppressing a groan.
Rudely I laughed.
"Surely, Mavis," father continued plaintively, "you could never demandthat I kiss--"
I laughed again. Mrs. Withers--ugly name, isn't it!--is the wife ofour pastor. She is a good woman, but she possesses little charm.
I just touched my roses, with a cautious finger-tip.
"June has been here, you prosaic person," I said. "Witness these, andthen deny it if you can."
Father, relieved, leaned back in my comfortable armchair. At least, Iknow it _looks_ comfortable.
"I did not see her," he said. "That is, not until I entered this room,and found her wearing my daughter's most becoming face."
Father is so satisfactory! I'm sure I bridled.
"Bring me a mirror, immediately!" I demanded.
Father rose obediently to his lean height, and fumbled among thethings on my dresser for the fat silver mirror, adorned with itscharmingly ugly cupids, which had been my mother's.
"There, Miss Vanity!" he said. And while I studied my reflection, hestudied me from under his bushy brows.
Finally, in silence, I gave him back the glass.
"Well?" asked father.
"Well?" I responded, which was not courteous.
"Do you find yourself prettier than yesterday?"
"Oh! Much!" I answered, with conviction.
After all, there are compensations in the possession of a pointedface, decorated with big dark eyes, and a delightful mouth. My nosehas never pleased me; but always, when I am gloomiest, my hair affordsme consolation. Sarah makes a household pet of it, and cares for itdevotedly. There's heaps of it. So much, that it makes my head ache towear it piled high. So it generally lies in two long braids across thesheets.
"Father," I asked, "what color is my hair?"
He leaned forward and lifted one of the braids.
"Exactly the color of cloudy amber," he answered.
I pondered on this for a time, and then: "That," I said, "sounds verynice--but improbable."
We smiled at one another, but suddenly the laughter left his eyes, andhe bent to kiss my forehead, perhaps to hide his face.
"You grow more lovely every day, Mavis," he said, gravely.
Could anything be sweeter than a father who says all those little,lover things to one? I think not.
I laid my cheek against his hand. He has nice hands, quick to sootheand caress. Nothing is quite unendurable with father near.
"You should be a poet," I told him. "Sometimes I think you are,instead of a historian. Nothing in the world can ever make me believethat you write deadly-dull books for deadly-dull people to read. Dothey read them?" I inquired as an afterthought.
"Mavis!" he shook his finger at me, in mock indignation.
"Well," I answered truthfully, "mediaeval history must be dull. I'msure I can't remember any of it!"
Here our argument, but half commenced, ceased. For father, with anexclamation, plunged his hands deep into his pockets, and after a timeproduced a slim, sober volume.
"Here it is!" he cried in triumph.
"Here is what?" I asked in some astonishment. "How you do dash about,father. Your mind turns all sorts of corners. What is it--mediaevalhistory?"
"Certainly not, minx! Poetry!"
"Poetry!"
He laid the book on the bed, and my hands pounced upon it like twowhite cats on a small brown mouse.
"I've been starving for some!" I announced, and turned the book overto read the title, _The Lyric Hour by Richard Warren_.
"Where," I asked, tucking my treasure under my pillow, "did you getit?"
"It came in the morning mail," he answered.
I looked at him searchingly.
"There is," I ventured, "some mystery about this _Lyric Hour_."
Father laughed, and fished once more in his pockets.
"Here is the letter which came with it," he said.
I opened the envelope, which bore the name of father's publisher andgood friend, and read:
NEW YORK CITY June 18th
Dear Carroll:
I'm sending you your delayed proofs, and by way of apology and distraction, the volume of verse which has created such a sensation in literary and critical circles--those two kingdoms which occasionally overlap--but are not always completely allied. I feel certain that you and Mavis will enjoy Richard Warren. Old and sedate as I have grown with the years, I must confess that he has made my pulses quicken and my heart take on something of its youth again.
With warmest remembrances to you both,
Faithfully yours, JOHN DENTON
I gave the letter back to father.
"It must be some book!" I remarked with awe, if slangily.
Father raised an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"Mr. Denton--and 'quickened pulses'?" I quoted with a risinginflection.
"Why not?" interrogated my parent. "A contemporary of mine, and,Mavis, you must admit, an admirer of yours--"
I was flattered into silence, and turned my attention to my roses oncemore. Father chewed his pipe stem--a reprehensible habit--and made anannouncement.
"We've had another caller today," he said.
"You're as bad as Sarah for concealing things until the eleventhhour," I reproached him. "Who was it?"
"Denton's nephew."
This, in Green Hill phraseology, really fetched me. Round-eyed, Istared.
"Didn't know he had one!" I said, somewhat aggrieved. "Who is he, andwhat is he doing here?"
Father stretched out his long legs, preparatory to explanation.
"It's a long story," he said. "Briefly, this is a prodigal nephew.There has been some family feud in the Denton clan, but recently doneaway with. When the hatchet was buried, Denton got into touch withhis late brother's family, which consists of a wife, and an onlyson, who is a doctor. He has just recovered from a slightbreak-down--overwork, I believe. And Denton through me arranged tohave him come here to recuperate and at the same time to assist ourgood friend, McAllister in some of his surgical research."
By this time my m
ind was putting two and two together and making eightor nine.
"Not Doctor Denton," I asked, "_the_ Doctor Denton?"
Father nodded.
"Perhaps--" he began wistfully. But I shook my head.
"Please not!" I said. And he left me with his sentence unspoken. But Iknew! We had both read so much of the young surgeon who had effectedwonderful cures in cases similar to mine. It had never occurred toeither of us, at the time, that he might be of John Denton's family.But I knew that father often wished, out loud, that he might consultwith him about me, deploring the fact that he was in Europe. But for anumber of years I have begged so hard that no more doctors be letloose to probe and pound me--a process of infinite torture with noresults save deeper hopelessness and white nights, that fatherpromised. So I have been left in peace. Lazily, I wondered why fatherhad not told me sooner of his discovery and subsequent arrangementwith Doctor Mac. But I had a bad siege of it, a while back, andprobably during that very period the matter had come up. Doubtless,when I had finally struggled up again from my depths, father, oncemore lost to the world among his books, had forgotten.
I lay silent, watching a bird seesaw on the vine which clambers overmy window-ledge in friendly fashion. "Long past your bed-time!" Iremarked severely. But it cheeped at me impudently.
I wonder what Doctor Denton looks like. Thin, I fancy, professional,and probably very jumpy. But I cannot condemn his nerves quite asharshly as I know Sarah does. I have had a speaking acquaintance withnerves, myself.
I meant to indulge in _The Lyric Hour_ tonight. But my little bluefriend has claimed all of my time. I will save Mr. Warren, therefore,for another day. Like icing on a cake. The book lies under my pillowstill, barely peeped at. Perhaps I shall sleep better with that Shipof Song beneath my cheek.
Diary, good night!
Twenty-four hours later.
Oh, Diary, I have found him! And I don't know, and care less, whetherhe is twenty or ninety, fat or thin, married or single! The only thingin all the world which I am sure of at present is that he is mine! ForI have him locked up between two vellum doors, from which he shallnever escape. He's here--and never in all my life has anyone sothoroughly belonged to me. I've the heart and brains and beautifulspirit of him, and all day long his name makes a happy spot in myconscience. _Richard Warren! Richard Warren!_ I hold the book that hehas given to the world between my hands, in reverence. For all that Ihave hoped, and dreamed, and lived, in my shut-in life; all that Ihave ever wanted to be; all, that in my secret soul-shrine I haveworshipped in God and Nature and Love of Love, is written down herefor me to read and make doubly my own. I don't know who or what he is,Diary, in the outside world. And it doesn't matter. Nothing mattersbut this one little book to which he has set his name. For everythingworth while is here; dust of stars and wine of dreams; essence ofyouth and joy of living, given word-form. And yet, these are not wordsso much as they are music, and color, and fragrance. I've just beenreading and reading, and now I've laid the book aside, and have beenlying here idly, letting broken snatches of purest beauty driftthrough my mind. And, for the first time I find myself regretting theshade of my eyes, for my new companion sings of "grey eyes as pure asGod's first dream of stars." But perhaps it's just that grey lendsitself more easily to poetry than common or garden brown.
Diary, I wonder if I have fallen in love with a book! But what asatisfactory state of heart to be in after all! I can banish my loverwith so little effort, if ever I am not in the mood for him! I caneven cast him into the fire, if he ever bores me! And I am sure thatthe most lovelorn maiden on earth must have moments when she wouldenvy that faculty! And when I finally relent, as all true lovers must,how simple it has been made for me to buy a new copy of the Beloved!
Good night, "sweet gossip," as the ladies of Shakespeare's time werewont to say. You're such a comfort! And you'll not tell, will you,that Richard Warren and all his words lie once again beneath mypillow?
June 21
It's raining. Silver fingers are tapping at my window pane, andfather's morning offering of roses came to me with their darling facesall wet and gleaming. I hated the weather _hard_ when I woke up, butin my _Lyric Hour_, which holds so many, many lyric hours for me,there's a little verse about the rain, which patters through my mindas soothingly as the drops outside. So I've become almost reconciledto a dull day, devoid of visitors, and with Sarah complaining of"rheumatics." I shall begin to grumble about them myself soon, for I'maware of warnings in my spine which bode no good. I'm too tired towrite more, Diary.
July 1
Since last I set pen to your paper, Blue One, I have descended intoSloughs of Despair. Now, emerged again, I take up my story where Ileft it. A day or so after the last time I talked with you, I had anattack, of the sort which has mercifully been spared me for over ayear. It had been coming on, steadily, but I wasn't going to give into it--oh, no! So, the first intimation which father and Sarah had ofits arrival was late one night, when a moan that I had been bitingback for an hour tore its way to freedom past my closed lips, andrevealed its presence, surprisingly, in the shape of a scream. Sarahcame flying to my bed, and hard on her heels, father. They gave mesuch remedies as are always at hand, and which generally provefriendly. But this time they failed. My Demon had been in abeyance toolong, and was reluctant to loosen his clutches. Once made free of myflesh, he would listen to no reason. Presently there came a period ofhalf-consciousness, through which I dimly heard father at thetelephone, calling Dr. McAllister's number. I almost smiled, throughthe creeping faintness, to think how annoyed he would profess himselfto be, "called out of bed at this ungodly hour!" and how once arrived,he would toil to help me.
When I opened my eyes again after what seemed years, it was with avague sense of amazement that Doctor Mac had grown so young since lastI had seen him. For he was slim, where once he had been inclined torotundity, and ruddy-brown where once he had been sparse and grey.Upon my pulse was an unfamiliar hand, and a strange voice, close tome, was saying quietly.
"She's coming round, Mr. Carroll."
Somehow, this calm disposition of me was annoying.
"I'm not," I heard myself contradict weakly.
Two steel-blue eyes, set in a lean face, met mine. It was not afriendly encounter.
"Please don't talk," ordered this new Doctor Mac briefly.
Father laid his hand upon my forehead.
"Is the pain better, dear?" he asked, with that break in his voicewhich always comes when he knows that I am suffering.
I tried to flash triumph into the blue eyes, and responded, "Yes."Then, as My Demon's jaws took a fresh hold on my spinal column,"Oh--no--!"
There was a low-voiced consultation, and then father said,reassuringly,
"Don't talk, Mavis dear, and lie quiet. Doctor Denton is going to giveyou something to relieve you."
I felt six years old again, and resentful to find father going over tothe enemy. But I was grateful, that, after all, our own dear DoctorMac had not been metamorphosed into an ogre with icicle eyes. As thetiny, merciful piston went home, I said feebly, with maliceaforethought.
"Hello--_Doctor Jumpy_!"
And the last thing I saw before I fell asleep was his startled face.And in my first half-dreams, I found myself repeating, childishly, "Hedid jump! He _did_. And I made him!"
And that, Dear Diary, was my informal introduction to the nervousnephew of Mr. John Denton.