Part 88 (1/2)
Upon Mavis's third visit to Miss Nippett after her interview with Mr Poulter, she noticed a change in the sick woman's appearance; she was sitting up in bed with a face wreathed in smiles.
”'Ave you 'eard?” she cried excitedly, when she saw Mavis.
”Heard what?” asked Mavis innocently.
”'Bout me an' 'Poulter's.' You don't mean to say you 'aven't 'eard!”
”I hope it's good news.”
”Good! Good! It's wonderful! Jest you throw your eye over that.”
Mavis read a formally worded letter from Mr Poulter, in which he informed Miss Nippett ”that, in consideration of her many years'
faithful service, he could think of no more fitting way to reward her than by taking her into partners.h.i.+p: in accordance with this resolve, what was formerly known as 'Poulter's' would in future be described for all time as 'Poulter and Nippett's.'”
”What d'ye think of that?” asked Miss Nippett.
”It's only what you deserved.”
”There's no going back on it now it's in black and white.”
”He wouldn't wish to.”
”It's proof, ain't it, legal an' all that?”
”Absolute. I congratulate you,” said Mavis, as she took the wan white hand in hers.
”Even now I can't b'lieve it's true,” sighed the accompanist, as she sank exhausted on her pillows.
”You're overdoing it,” said Mavis, as she mixed some brandy and milk.
”I 'ate the muck,” declared Miss Nippett, when Mavis besought her to drink it.
”But if you don't do what you're told, you'll never get well.”
”Reely!”
”Of course not. Take this at once,” Mavis commanded.
”Here, I say, who are you talking to? Have you for gotten I'm a partner in--” Here the little woman broke off, to exclaim as she burst into tears: ”It's true: it's true: it's reely, reely true.”
Before Mavis went home, she soothed Miss Nippett's tears; she left her in a condition of radiant, enviable happiness. She had never seen anyone so possessed by calm abiding joy as the accompanist at her unlooked-for good fortune.
On her way back, Mavis marvelled at what she believed to be the all-wise arrangements of Providence, by which happiness was parcelled out to the humblest of human beings. With the exception of Windebank, she had not been friendly with a rich person since she had been a child, so could not, at present, have any opinion of how much happiness the wealthy enjoyed; but she could not help remarking how much joy and contentment she had encountered in the person seemingly most unlikely to be thus blessed. At this period of her life, it did not occur to her that the natural and proper egoism of the human mind finds expression in a vanity, that, if happily unchastened by knowledge or experience, is a source of undiluted joy to the possessor.
If time be measured by the amount of suffering endured, it was a little later that Mavis realised that to be ignorant is to be often happy, enlightenment begetting desires that there is no prospect of staying, and, therefore, discontentment ensues.
When Mavis next visited Miss Nippett, she rummaged, at her friend's request, in the cupboard containing the unclaimed ”overs” for finery with which the accompanist wished to decorate her exalted state. If Miss Nippett had had her way and had appeared in the street wearing the gaudy, fluffy things she picked out, she would have been put down as a disreputable old lady. But, for all Miss Nippett's resolves, it was written in the book of fate that she was to take but one more journey out of doors, and that in the simplest of raiment. For all her prodigious elation at her public a.s.sociation with Mr Poulter, her health far from improved; her strength declined daily; she wasted away before Mavis' dismayed eyes. She did not suffer, but dozed away the hours with increasingly rare intervals in which she was stark awake. On these latter occasions, for all the latent happiness which had come into her life, she would fret because Mr Poulter rarely called to inquire after her health. Such was her distress at this remissness on the part of the dancing master, that more often than not, when Miss Nippett, after waking from sleep, asked with evident concern if Mr Poulter had been, Mavis would reply:
”Yes. But he didn't like to come upstairs and disturb you.”
For five or six occasions Miss Nippett accepted this explanation, but, at last, she became skeptical of Mavis' statements.