Sparrows: the story of an unprotected girl

Horace W. C. (Horace Wykeham Can) Newte

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• Publié par: ondri
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 18
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sparrows, by Horace W. C. Newte This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Sparrows The Story of an Unprotected Girl Author: Horace W. C. Newte Posting Date: August 1, 2009 [EBook #4345] Release Date: August, 2003 First Posted: January 22, 2002 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPARROWS *** Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. SPARROWS THE STORY OF AN UNPROTECTED GIRL by Horace W. C. Newte CONTENTS ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTY-ONE TWENTY-TWO TWENTY-THREE TWENTY-FOUR TWENTY-FIVE TWENTY-SIX TWENTY-SEVEN TWENTY-EIGHT TWENTY-NINE THIRTY THIRTY-ONE THIRTY-TWO THIRTY-THREE THIRTY-FOUR THIRTY-FIVE THIRTY-SIX THIRTY-SEVEN THIRTY-EIGHT THIRTY-NINE FORTY FORTY-ONE FORTY-TWO THE DEVITTS MAVIS KEEVES FRIENDS IN NEED MAVIS LEAVES HER NEST BARREN WAYS "DAWES" WIDER HORIZONS SPIDER AND FLY AWING "POULTER'S" MAVIS'S PRAYER MRS HAMILTON'S MAVIS GOES OUT TO SUPPER THE SEQUEL A GOOD SAMARITAN SURRENDER SPRINGTIME CHARLIE PERIGAL THE MOON GODDESS THE WAY OF ALL FLESH THE AWAKENING O LOVE, FOR DELIGHTS! THE CURSE OF EVE SNARES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE TRAVAIL THE NURSING HOME MISS 'PETT'S APOTHEOSIS THE ORDEAL THE "PERMANENT" PIMLICO MISS TOOMBS REVEALS HERSELF AN OLD FRIEND MAVIS GOES TO MELKBRIDGE THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW A VISIT MAVIS AND HAROLD MAVIS'S REVENGE A SURPRISE A MIDNIGHT WALK TRIBULATION THE WELL-BELOVED CHAPTER ONE THE DEVITTS Everyone at Melkbridge knew the Devitts: they lived in the new, pretentious-looking house, standing on the right, a few minutes after one left the town by the Bathminster road. It was a blustering, stare-one-in-the-face kind of house, which defied one to question the financial stability of its occupants. The Devitts were like their home in being new, ostentatious folk; their prosperity did not extend further back than the father of Montague, the present head of the family. Montague Devitt did little beyond attending board meetings of the varied industries which his father's energy had called into being. He was a bluff, well-set-up man, who had married twice; both of his wives had brought him money. Each time Montague chose a mate, he had made some effort to follow the leanings of his heart; but money not lying in the same direction as love, an overmastering instinct of his blood had prevailed against his sentimental inclinations; in each case it had insisted on his marrying, in one instance an interest in iron works, in another, a third share of a Portland cement business. His first wife had borne him two sons and a daughter; his second was childless. Montague was a member of two or three Bohemian clubs in London, to which, as time went on, he became increasingly attached. At these, he passed as a good fellow, chiefly from a propensity to stand drinks to any and everyone upon any pretence; he was also renowned amongst his boon companions for his rendering of "The Village Blacksmith" in dumb show, a performance greeted by his thirsty audience with thunders of applause. Harold, his first born, will be considered later. Lowther, his second son, can be dismissed in a few words. He was a good-looking specimen of the British bounder. His ideas of life were obtained from the "Winning Post," and the morality (or want of it) suggested by musical comedy productions at the Gaiety Theatre. He thought coarsely of women. While spending money freely in the society of ladies he met at the Empire promenade, or in the Cafe d' l'Europe, he practised mean economics in private. Victoria, Montague's daughter, was a bit of a puzzle to friends and relations alike, all of whom commenced by liking her, a sentiment which, sooner or later, gave place to a feeling of dissatisfaction. She was a disappointment to her father, although he would never admit it to himself; indeed, if he had tried to explain this displeasure, he would have been hard put to it to give a straightforward cause for a distressing effect. On first acquaintance, it would seem as if she were as desirable a daughter as heart of father could want. She was tall, good-looking, well educated; she had abundance of tact, accomplishments, and refinement; she had never given her parents a moment of anxiety. What, then, was wrong with her from her father's point of view? He was well into middle age; increasing years made him yearn for the love of which his life had been starved; this craving would have been appeased by love for his daughter, but the truth was that he was repelled by the girl's perfection. She had never been known to lose her temper; not once had she shown the least preference for any of the eligible young men of her acquaintance; although always becomingly dressed, she was never guilty of any feminine foibles, which would have endeared her to her father. To him, such correctness savoured of inhumanity; much of the same feeling affected the girl's other relatives and friends, to the ultimate detriment of their esteem. Hilda, Montague's second wife, was the type of woman that successful industrialism turns out by the gross. Sincere, well-meaning, narrow, homely, expensively but indifferently educated, her opinion on any given subject could be predicted; her childlessness accentuated her want of mental breadth. She read the novels of Mrs Humphry Ward; she was vexed if she ever missed an Academy; if she wanted a change, she frequented fashionable watering-places. She was much exercised by the existence of the "social evil"; she belonged to and, for her, subscribed heavily to a society professing to alleviate, if not to cure, this distressing ailment of the body politic. She was the honorary secretary of a vigilance committee, whose operations extended to the neighbouring towns of Trowton and Devizeton. The good woman was ignorant that the starvation wages which her husband's companies paid were directly responsible for the existence of the local evil she deplored, and which she did her best to eradicate. Miss Spraggs, Hilda Devitt's elder sister, lived with the family at Melkbridge House. She was a virgin with a taste for scribbling, which commonly took the form of lengthy letters written to those she thought worthy of her correspondence. She had diligently read every volume of letters, which she could lay hands on, of persons whose performance was at all renowned in this department of literature (foreign ones in translations), and was by way of being an agreeable rattle, albeit of a pinchbeck, provincial genus. Miss Spraggs was much courted by her relations, who were genuinely proud of her local literary reputation. Also, let it be said, that she had the disposal of capital bringing in five hundred a year. Montague's eldest son, Harold, was, at once, the pride and grief of the Devitts, although custom had familiarised them with the calamity attaching to his life. He had been a comely, athletic lad, with a nature far removed from that of the other Devitts; he had seemed to be in the nature of a reversion to the type of gentleman, who, it was said, had imprudently married an ancestress of Montague's first wife. Whether or not this were so, in manner, mind, and appearance Harold was generations removed from his parents and brother. He had been the delight of his father's eye, until an accident had put an end to the high hopes which his father had formed of his future. A canal ran through Melkbridge; some way from the town this narrowed its course to run beneath a footbridge, locally known as the "Gallows" bridge. It was an achievement to jump this stretch of water; Harold Devitt was renowned amongst the youth of the neighbourhood for the performance of this feat. He constantly repeated the effort, but did it once too often. One July morning, he miscalculated the distance and fell, to be picked up some while after, insensible. He had injured his spine. After many weeks of suspense suffered by his parents, these learned that their dearly loved boy would live, although he would be a cripple for life. Little by little, Harold recovered strength, till he was able to get about Melkbridge on a self-propelled tricycle; any day since the year of the accident his kindly, distinguished face might be seen in the streets of the town, or the lanes of the adjacent country, where he would pull up to chat with his many friends. His affliction had been a terrible blow to Harold; when he had first realised the permanent nature of his injuries, he had cursed his fate; his impotent rage had been pitiful to behold. This travail occurred in the first year of his affliction; later, he discovered, as so many others have done in a like extremity, that time accustoms the mind to anything: he was now resigned to his misfortune. His sufferings had endowed him with a great tolerance and a vast instinct of sympathy for all living things, qualities which are nearly always lacking in young men of his present age, which was twentynine. The rest of the family stood in some awe of Harold; realising his superiority of mind, they feared to be judged at the bar of his opinion; also, he had some hundreds a year left him, in his own right, by his mother: it was unthinkable that he should ever marry. Another thing that differentiated him from his family was that he possessed a sense of humour. It may be as well to state that Harold plays a considerable part in this story, which is chiefly concerned with a young woman, of whom the assembled Devitts were speaking in the interval between tea and dinner on a warm July day. Before setting this down, however, it should be said that the chief concern of the Devitts (except