At this time many gentle and friendly things began to bear witness to Mary’s presence. There were flowers in the quiet old garden for instance, and some large red carp in the fountain’s basin, and two married couples of white fantail pigeons who lived in a house on a tall wooden leg and kept up a convivial cooing. These pigeons lacked all respect for Stephen; by August they were flying in at her window and landing with soft, heavy thuds on her desk where they strutted until she fed them with maize. And because they were Mary’s and Mary loved them, Stephen would laugh, as unruffled as they were, and would patiently coax them back into the garden with bribes for their plump little circular crops. In the turret room that had been Puddle’s sanctum, there were now three cagefuls of Mary’s rescues—tiny bright coloured birds with dejected plumage, and eyes that had filmed from a lack of sunshine. Mary was always bringing them home from the terrible bird shops along the river, for her love of such helpless and suffering things was so great that she in her turn must suffer. An ill-treated creature would haunt her for days, so that Stephen would often exclaim half in earnest:
“Go and buy up all the animal shops in Paris … anything, darling, only don’t look unhappy!”
The tiny bright coloured birds would revive to some extent, thanks to Mary’s skilled treatment; but since she always bought the most ailing, not a few of them left this disheartening world for what we must hope was a warm, wild heaven—there were several small graves already in the garden.
Then one morning, when Mary went out alone because Stephen had letters to write to Morton, she chanced on yet one more desolate creature who followed her home to the Rue Jacob, and right into Stephen’s immaculate study. It was large, ungainly and appallingly thin; it was coated with mud which had dried on its nose, its back, its legs and all over its stomach. Its paws were heavy, its ears were long, and its tail, like the tail of a rat, looked hairless, but curved up to a point in a miniature sickle. Its face was as smooth as though made out of plush, and its luminous eyes were the colour of amber.
Mary said: “Oh, Stephen—he wanted to come. He’s got a sore paw; look at him, he’s limping!”
Then this tramp of a dog hobbled over to the table and stood there gazing dumbly at Stephen, who must stroke his anxious, dishevelled head: “I suppose this means that we’re going to keep him.”
“Darling, I’m dreadfully afraid it does—he says he’s sorry to be such a mongrel.”
“He needn’t apologize,” Stephen smiled, “he’s all right, he’s an Irish water-spaniel, though what he’s doing out here the Lord knows; I’ve never seen one before in Paris.”
They fed him, and later that afternoon they gave him a bath in Stephen’s bathroom. The result of that bath, which was disconcerting as far as the room went, they left to Adèle. The room was a bog, but Mary’s rescue had emerged a mass of chocolate ringlets, all save his charming plush-covered face, and his curious tail, which was curved like a sickle. Then they bound the sore pad and took him downstairs; after which Mary wanted to know all about him, so Stephen unearthed an illustrated dog book from a cupboard under the study bookcase.
“Oh, look!” exclaimed Mary, reading over her shoulder, “He’s not Irish at all, he’s really a Welshman: ‘We find in the Welsh laws of Howell Dda the first reference to this intelligent spaniel. The Iberians brought the breed to Ireland. …’ Of course, that’s why he followed me home; he knew I was Welsh the moment he saw me!”
Stephen laughed: “Yes, his hair grows up from a peak like yours—it must be a national failing. Well, what shall we call him? His name’s important; it ought to be quite short.”
“David,” said Mary.
The dog looked gravely from one to the other for a moment, then he lay down at Mary’s feet, dropping his chin on his bandaged paw, and closing his eyes with a grunt of contentment. And so it had suddenly come to pass that they who had lately been two, were now three. There were Stephen and Mary—there was also David.
XLII
I
That October there arose the first dark cloud. It drifted over to Paris from England, for Anna wrote asking Stephen to Morton but with never a mention of Mary Llewellyn. Not that she ever did mention their friendship in her letters, indeed she completely ignored it; yet this invitation which excluded the girl seemed to Stephen an intentional slight upon Mary. A hot flush of anger spread up to her brow as she read and reread her mother’s brief letter:
“I want to discuss some important points regarding the management of the estate. As the place will eventually come to you, I think we should try to keep more in touch. …” Then a list of the points Anna wished to discuss; they seemed very trifling indeed to Stephen.
She put the letter away in a drawer and sat staring darkly out of the window. In the garden Mary was talking to David, persuading him not to retrieve the pigeons.
“If my mother had invited her ten times over I’d never have taken her to Morton,” Stephen muttered.
Oh, but she knew, and only too well, what it would mean should they be there together; the lies, the despicable subterfuges, as though they were little less than criminals. It would
