Miss Nippett sighed with some content.
"If 'e don't come soon, 'e'll be too late," murmured Miss Nippett after an interval of seeming exhaustion.
Mavis waited with ears straining for the sound of the knocker on the front door. Miss Nippett lay so that her weakening eyes could watch the door of the bedroom. Now and again, Mavis addressed one or two remarks to her, but the old woman merely shook her head, as if to convey that she had neither the wish nor the strength for further speech. Mavis, with a great fear, noted the failing light in her friend's eyes, but was convinced that, for all the weakening of the woman's physical processes, she desired as ardently as ever a sight of Mr Poulter before she died. A few minutes later, a greyness crept into Miss Nippett's face. Mavis repressed an inclination to fly from the room. Then, although she feared to believe the evidence of her ears, a knock was heard at the door. After what seemed an interval of centuries, she heard footsteps ascending the stairs. Mavis glanced at Miss Nippett. She was horrified to see that her friend was heedless of Mr Poulter's possible approach. She moved quickly to the door. To her unspeakable relief, Mr Poulter stood outside. She beckoned him quickly into the room. He hastened to the bedside, where, after gazing sadly at the all but unconscious Miss Nippett, he knelt to take the woman's wan, worn hand in his. To Mavis's surprise, Miss Nippett's fingers at once closed on those of Mr Poulter. As the realisation of his presence reached the dying woman's understanding, a smile of infinite gladness spread over her face: a rare, happy smile, which, as if by magic, effaced the puckered forehead, the wasted cheeks, the long upper lip, to substitute in their stead a great contentment, such as might be possessed by one who has found a deep joy, not only after much travail, but as if, till the last moment, the longed-for bliss had all but been denied. The wan fingers grasped tighter and tighter; the smile faded a little before becoming fixed.
Another moment, and "Poulter's" had lost the most devoted servant which it had ever possessed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE ORDEAL
Mavis and Jill stood outside Mrs Gowler's, in the late evening of the Wednesday after the day on which Miss Nippett had commenced her long, long rest. Mavis had left the trunk she was bringing at the station (a porter was trundling it on), but before opening the gate of No. 9 Durley Road, she instinctively paused to take what she thought might prove a last look at the world.
The contented serenity of the summer night enhanced the meanness of the little street; but Mavis's imagination soared over the roofs, not only of the road in which she stood, but of countless other roofs, till it winged its way to Melkbridge. Instead of the depressing road, with its infrequent down-at-heel passers-by, Mavis saw only the Avon as she had known it a year ago. The river flowed lazily beneath the pollard willows, as if complaisant enough to let these see their reflection in the water. Forget-me-nots jewelled the banks; ragged robin looked roguishly from, clumps of bushes; the scent of hay seemed to fill the world. That was then.
Now—! Before she had set out for Durley Road, she had penned a little note to Perigal. In this she had told him of the circumstances in which she was writing it, and had said that if it proved to be the last letter she should send him, that she would never cease to love and trust him in any world to which it might please God to take her. This was all she had written; but the moving simplicity of her words might have touched even Perigal's heart. Besides writing to her lover, Mavis had given Mrs Scatchard the address to which she was going, and had besought her, in the event of anything untoward happening, either to take Jill for her own or to find her a good home. Mrs Scatchard's promise to keep and cherish Jill herself, should anything happen to her mistress, cheered Mavis much.