MISS PINK waited in the lanes; she felt unable to find her lover unless some one, other than the summer day, guided her to Him. Who this might be Miss Pink did not know, but she waited.
Miss Pink waited, and looked towards Mrs. Moggs’ shop.
Mrs. Moggs had awakened that morning very hopeful and happy. The evening before, for some reason or other, the Mockery children hadn’t come in to worry her, and also she felt sure that when she came downstairs and peeped into a certain drawer she would find little baby mice.
But these were not the only reasons why Mrs. Moggs was more than usually happy that day. There was another, and that was, that the town postmaster, Mr. Hunt, had apparently forgotten the village.
‘Perhaps,’ thought Mrs. Moggs, ringing her bells, and showing in her thought the innocence of her nature—‘perhaps he will never come again.’
Mrs. Moggs had dressed herself slowly, and stood for a while before her glass to make her bells ring.
When she was downstairs and looked into the drawer to see how many mice were born, she counted five. She was so glad to see them that she hardly noticed that the mice had bitten a hole into the other drawer where the stamps and postal orders were kept. But when she wiped her glasses and looked more closely at the nest she saw that it was made up of little coloured bits of paper.
Mrs. Moggs trembled. She had only a moment before looked out of the window and seen Miss Pink standing in the lane; and now a large motor car was drawn up at her door, and a man was stepping out of it.
Mrs. Moggs turned very pale as Mr. Hunt in his noisiest manner came into the shop and at once demanded of her an exact account of the stamps and orders that she had sold.
While Mrs. Moggs looked for her books, Esther Pottle opened the door and, holding out some pence in her hand, said: ‘These are for the stamps that mother owes you for.’
Mr. Hunt looked so fiercely at Esther that she dropped all her pennies.
‘Yes, I see,’ said Mr. Hunt, who had glanced at the figures; ‘and now bring to me all the orders that you have in stock, please.’
‘But where are the rest of them?’ asked Mr. Hunt, after counting carefully all that Mrs. Moggs brought to him.
‘The mice,’ said Mrs. Moggs, trembling, ‘the white mice.’
‘You’re a liar!’ shouted Mr. Hunt.
Mrs. Moggs couldn’t see Mr. Hunt now, but she knew that from somewhere or other, perhaps from those islands that he had gone to, Mr. Pink was telling her about the beautiful sea. The shop faded too, and Mr. Hunt went as a bad dream goes, while before her she saw the beautiful sea—only the sea.
Mr. Hunt was gone, and Esther picked up the pennies and laid them upon the counter.
Mrs. Moggs fetched her bonnet and cloak. In the lane she met Miss Pink, who appeared to have been waiting for her.
‘I am going to the beautiful sea,’ said Mrs. Moggs, nodding her head, while her bells rang merrily.
‘And I will go with you,’ said Miss Pink.
Miss Pink helped Mrs. Moggs over the stile; they walked in the meadows together.
Since she had received her letter, Miss Pink saw all her life as pointing one way—to her lover. Mr. Gulliver who had not replied to her, her brother leaving her with no word, her illness and her ever-recurring pain—all this trouble she felt was soon to be completed and soon to be changed to joy. She was aware, however, that perhaps her lover might wish her to do some kind last act; to love an enemy, an enemy whom she had always dreaded, before he took her to Himself.
Miss Pink had never dared to go and look at the sea ever since Mr. Tarr had told her that the beast would come out of it. But now, having had her letter, she cared not what she saw, and she even felt brave enough to save the beast from drowning if such a strange chance occurred. Suppose she were to see the beast trying to get up out of the sea, she would now even dare to help it. Miss Pink felt as she walked that she should have been kinder in her thoughts to the horrid creature.
‘What have I done,’ said Miss Pink, thinking her thoughts aloud, ‘to help or save any one? When I have seen Mrs. Pottle beating her kittens to death and calling them Prings, that she used to do every time the poor cat had its family, I never laid down in the path and told her to beat me instead and to call me Mrs. Pring. And when I once saw Simon Cheney treating poor Dinah cruelly and in a very wicked way, I never offered to allow him to do his worst with me instead.’
‘We are going to the beautiful sea,’ said Mrs. Moggs, interrupting Miss Pink’s thoughts.
The two women walked down to the beach together; they held each other by the hand. They stepped cautiously over the shining pebbles that were warmed in the sun.
The sea was very still; during all the time that poor Mr. Dobbin had lived there it had never once been so still. In the distance there was a haze that comes only upon a sultry summer’s day. But the tide was very high.
‘So this is the beautiful sea,’ said Mrs. Moggs a little disappointedly.
When there was a high tide the sea almost covered the Blind Cow Rock. A small portion of the rock was now only just above the water.
Miss Pink uttered a cry of fear.
Upon the rock that now and again a little gentle wave would wash, there was standing in an attitude of extreme distress Mr. Dobbin’s monkey.
‘It’s the dreadful beast,’ said Miss Pink, and shuddered.
Mrs. Moggs looked at the beast too, and then at her carefully blacked Sunday shoes, that seemed to have led her to a very strange church that day, and all because she wanted so much to escape from the horrid words of Mr. Hunt the postmaster.
‘It’s the dreadful beast that Mr. Tarr spoke of, though it hasn’t the horns,’ said Miss Pink in a voice of terror; ‘and he’s coming to drown us all.’
‘He looks very unhappy,’ remarked Mrs. Moggs, ‘and I think he is afraid of being drowned himself.’
The tide was still rising.
Certain words that Miss Pink remembered reading somewhere—words spoken by the grand Lover of mankind—came into her mind: ‘But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you——’
‘I will save the poor beast from drowning,’ said Miss Pink, and without a thought as to what might happen to herself she stepped into the sea. She sank at once like a stone. Mrs. Moggs looked for the monkey; he was gone too.
In a few moments Mrs. Moggs saw Miss Pink’s shawl floating upon the water. ‘Miss Pink must be under her shawl,’ said Mrs. Moggs, ‘and I mustn’t go home and leave her in the beautiful sea.’
Mrs. Moggs regarded Miss Pink’s shawl thoughtfully; she looked down at her own shoes: so far she had not wetted them.
‘Mr. Caddy says,’ remarked Mrs. Moggs, looking into the sea, as if she expected Miss Pink to hear what she said, ‘that the sea never likes old women enough to want to hurt them. He says ’tis the young girls the waves be after. Miss Pink,’ said Mrs. Moggs loudly, ‘don’t go too far down.’
Mrs. Moggs stepped into the sea.
An hour later, when the fisherman was passing, he found Paul’s body washed up by the sea. He buried him deeply in the sands.