CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
A SURPRISE
Mavis spoke truly. She loved her husband, although with a different love from that which she had known for Perigal. She had adored the father of her child with her soul and with her body, but in her affection for her husband there was no trace of physical passion, of which she had no small share. This new-born love was, in truth, an immense maternal devotion which seemed to satisfy an insistent longing of her being.
Upon the day of their wedding, Mavis was already wondering if she were beginning to love Harold; but for all this uncertainty, she believed that if the marriage were to be a physical as well as a civil union, she would have confessed before the ceremony took place her previous intimacy with Perigal. After the marriage, the holy fervour with which Harold had regarded Mavis bewildered her. The more his nature was revealed to her, the better she was enabled to realise the cold-blooded brutality with which the supreme Power (Mavis's thoughts did not run so easily in the direction of a Heavenly Father as was once their wont) had permanently mutilated Harold's life, which had been of the rarest promise. Still ignorant of her real sentiments for her husband, she had persuaded him, for no apparent reason, to delay acquainting his family with the news of their marriage. Truth soon illumined Mavis's mind. Directly she realised how devotedly she loved her husband (the maternal aspect of her love did not occur to her), her punishment for her previous duplicity began. She was constantly overwhelmed with bitter reproaches because of her having set out to marry her husband from motives of revenge against his family.
Mavis's confession to the Devitts temporarily eased her mind, but, as her husband's solicitude for her happiness redoubled, her torments recommenced with all their old-time persistency. Harold's declining health gave her innumerable anguished hours; she realised that, so long as he lived, she would suffer for the deception she had practised. She believed that, if she survived him, her remaining days would be filled with grief.
Whichever way she looked, trouble confronted her with hard, unbending features.
She was enmeshed in a net of sorrow from which there was no escape.
In order to stifle any hints or rumours which might have got about Melkbridge of Mavis having been a mother without being a wife, she was pressed by the Devitts to make a stay of some length at Melkbridge House. Guessing the reason of this invitation, she accepted, although she, as well as her husband, were eager to get into a quaint, weather-beaten farmhouse which Harold had bought in the neighbourhood.
To make her stay as tolerable as possible, Mavis set herself to win the hearts of the Devitt family, the feminine members of which, she was convinced, were bitterly hostile to her. The men of the household, to the scarcely concealed dismay of the women, quickly came over to her side. Lowther she appreciated at his worth; her studied indifference to him went a long way towards securing that youth's approval, which was not unmingled with admiration for her person. Montague she was beginning to like. For his part, he was quickly sensible of the feminine distinction which Mavis's presence bestowed upon his home. The fine figure she cut in evening dress at dinner parties, when the Devitts feasted their world; her conversation in the drawing-room afterwards; the emotion she put into her playing and singing (it was the only expression Mavis could give to the abiding griefs gnawing at her heart), were social assets of no small value, which Devitt was the first to appreciate. Mrs Harold Devitt's appearance and parts gave to his assemblies a piquancy which was sadly lacking when his friends repaid his hospitality. Mavis, also, pointed out to Devitt the advisability of rescuing from the lumber rooms several fine old pieces of furniture which were hidden away in disgrace, largely because they had belonged to Montague's humble grandfather. The handiwork of Chippendale and Hepplewhite was furbished up and put about the house, replacing Tottenham Court Road monstrosities. When the old furniture epidemic presently seized upon Melkbridge, the Devitts could flatter themselves that they had done much to influence local fashion in the matter.
Montague came to take pleasure in Mavis's society, when he would drop his blustering manner to become his kindly self. They had many long talks together, which enabled Mavis to realise the loneliness of the man's life. The more Montague saw of her the more he disliked his son-in-law's share in the paternity of Mavis's dead child.