How gossip grows rife at Aghyohillbeg—How Hermia parries the question, and how Olga proves unkind.
How gossip grows rife at Aghyohillbeg—How Hermia parries the question, and how Olga proves unkind.
"She'sdisgracefullyugly!—I saw her quite close," says Mr. Kelly, in an injured tone. "I wonder what on earth Madam O'Connor means by asking her here, where she can be nothing but a blot upon a perfect landscape; all the rest of us are so lovely."
It is four o'clock, and hopelessly wet. The soft rain patters on the leaves outside, the grass and all the gardens are drowned in Nature's tears. There can be no lounging on sunny terraces, no delicious dreaming under shady beech-trees, this lost afternoon.
Giving in to the inevitable with a cheerful resignation worthy of record, they have all congregated in the grand old hall, one of the chief glories of Aghyohillbeg.
Through a vague but mistaken notion that it will add to their comfort and make them cosier and more forgetful of—or at least more indifferent to—the sunshine of yesterday, they have had an enormous fire of pine logs kindled upon the hearth. When too late, they discover it to be a discomfort; but, with a stoicism worthy a better cause, they decline to acknowledge their error, and stand in groups round the aggressive logs, pretending to enjoy them, but in reality dying of heat.
Meanwhile, the fragrant pieces of pine roar and crackle merrily, throwing shadows up the huge chimney, and casting bright gleams of light upon the exquisite oaken carving of the ancient chimney-piece that reaches almost to the lofty ceiling and is now blackened by age and beautiful beyond description.
Olga, in a sage-green gown, is lying back listlessly in a deep arm-chair; she has placed an elbow on either arm of it, and has brought her fingers so far towards each other that their tips touch. Hermia Herrick, in a gown of copper-red, is knitting languidly a little silk sock for the child nestling silently at her knee.
Monica, in plain white India muslin, is doing nothing, unless smiling now and then at Brian Desmond be anything, who is lying on a bear-skin rug, looking supremely happy and full of life and spirits. He has come over from Coole veryearly, being generously urged so to do by Madam O'Connor when parting with him last night. Ryde is not on the field, so the day is his own.
Miss Fitzgerald is looking rather handsome, in a dress of the very tiniest check, that is meant for a small woman only, or a child, and so makes her appear several sizes larger than she really is. Ulic Ronayne, standing leaning against the chimney-piece as close to Olga as circumstances will permit, is silent to a fault; and, indeed, every one but Mr. Kelly has succumbed to the damp depression of the air.
They have had only one distraction all day,—the arrival of another guest, a distant cousin of their hostess, who has been lauding her for a week or so. On inspection she proves to be a girl of nineteen, decidedly unprepossessing in appearance,—in fact, as Mr. Murphy, the butler, says to Mrs. Collins, the housekeeper, "as ugly as if she was bespoke."
A tall girl oppressed by freckles and with hair of a deep—well, let us emulate our polite French neighbors and call itblond ardent.
"Who is she?" asks Lord Rossmoyne, who arrived about an hour ago, to Ulic Ronayne's discomfiture.
"She's a fraud!" says Mr. Kelly, indignantly,—"a swindle! Madam assured us, last night, a charming girl was coming, to turn all heads and storm all hearts; and to-day, when we rushed in a body to the window and flattened our noses against the panes to see her, lo! a creature with red hair and pimples——"
"No, no; freckled, my dear Owen," interrupts Olga, indolently.
"It is all the same at a distance! general effect fatal in both cases," says Mr. Kelly, airily. "It makes one positively uncomfortable to look at her. I consider her being thrust upon us like this a deliberate insult. I think if she continues I shall leave."
"Oh,don't," says Desmond, in a tone of agonized entreaty. "Howshouldwe manage to get on without you?"
"Badly, badly, I know that," regretfully. "But it is a question of breaking either your hearts or mine. Some of us must go to the wall; it would be unfair to the world to make it me."
"I don't believe you will go far," says Mrs. Herrick, slowly. Kelly glances at her quickly, but she does not lift her eyes from the little sock, and her fingers move rapidly, easily as ever.
"London or Paris," he says,—"the city of fogs or the city of frogs. I don't know which I prefer."
"Better stay where you are," says Brian.
"Well, I really didn't think her so very plain," says Bella Fitzgerald, who thinks it pretty to say the kind thing always. "A large mouthisan affliction, certainly; and as for her complexion—but really, after all, it is better to see it as it is than painted and powdered, as one sees other people."
This is a faint cut at Olga, who is fond of powder, and who has not scrupled to add to her charms by a little touch of rouge now and then when she felt pallor demanded it.
"I think a little artificial aid might improve poor Miss Browne," says Hermia Herrick. Miss Browne is the new arrival.
"I don't. I think it is an abominable thing to cheat the public like that," says Miss Fitzgerald, doggedly: "nobody respectable would do it. Thedemi-mondepaint and powder."
"Dothey? how do you know, dear?" asks Olga Bohun, sweetly.
Miss Fitzgerald, feeling she has made afaux-pas, colors violently, tries to get herself out of it, and flounders helplessly. Lord Rossmoyne is looking surprised, Ulic Ronayne and Desmond amused.
"Every one says so," says the fair Bella, at last, in a voice that trembles with anger: "you know very well they do."
"I don't, indeed, my dear Bella. My acquaintance with—er—that sort of person has been limited: I quite envy you your superior knowledge."
Here Olga laughs a little, low, rippling laugh that completes her enemy's defeat. After the laugh there is a dead silence.
"I think somebody ought to remove the poor little child," says Mr. Kelly, in a low, impressive tone, pointing to Mrs. Herrick's little girl. At which everybody laughs heartily, and awkwardness is banished.
"Browne?—I knew an Archibald Browne once: anything to this girl?" asks Lord Rossmoyne, hurriedly, unwilling to let silence settle down on them again.
"Big man with a loose tie?" asks Ulic.
"Ye-es. There was something odd about his neck, now I remember," says Rossmoyne.
"That was her father. He had an idea he was like Lord Byron, and always wore his necktie flying in the wind."
"He couldn't manage it, though," says Mr. Kelly, with as near an attempt at mirth as he ever permits himself. "It always flew the wrong way. Byron's, if you call to mind his many portraits, always flew over his left shoulder; old Browne's wouldn't. By the bye," thoughtfully, "Byron must have had a wind of his own, mustn't he? our ordinary winds don't always blow in the same direction, do they?"
"I would that a wind could arise to blow you in some direction, when you are in such an idle mood as now," says Mrs. Herrick, in a low tone.
"If it would blow me inyourdirection, I should say amen to that," in a voice as subdued as her own.
"May the Fates avert from me a calamity so great!"
"You will have to entreat them very diligently, if you hope to escape it."
"Are you so very determined, then?"
"Yes. Although I feel I am mocked by the hope within me, still I shall persist."
"You waste your time."
"I am content to waste it in such a cause. Yet I am sorry I am so distasteful to you."
"That is not your fault. I forgive you that."
"What is it, then, you can't forgive in me?"
"Not more than I can't forgive in another. 'God made you all, therefore let you all pass for men.' I don't deal more hardly with you than with the rest, you see. You are only one of many."
"That is the unkindest thing you ever said to me. And that is saying much. Yet I, too, will beseech the Fates in my turn."
"To grant you what?"
"The finding of you in a gentler mind."
The faintest flicker of a smile crosses her lips. She lays her knitting on her knee for an instant, that she may the more readily let hertaperedfingers droop until they touch the pale brow of the child at her feet; then she resumes it again, with a face calm and emotionless as usual.
"Old Browne's girl can't owe her father much," Desmond is sayingaproposof something both lost and gone before, so far as Kelly and Mrs. Herrick are concerned.
"About a hundred thousand pounds," says Ronayne. "She is quite a catch, you know. No end of money. The old fellow died a year ago."
"No, he didn't; he demised," says Kelly, emerging fromobscurity into the light of conversation once more. "At least, so the papers said. There is a tremendous difference, you know. A poor man dies, a rich man demises. One should always bear in mind that important social distinction."
"And the good man! What of him?"saysDesmond, looking at his friend. "What does Montgomery say?"
"Yes, that is very mysterious," says Kelly, with bated breath. "According to Montgomery, 'the good manneverdies.' Think of that!Neverdies. He walks the earth forever, like asuperannuatedghost, only awfuller."
"Have you ever seen one?" asks Olga, leaning forward.
"What? a man that never died? Yes, lots of 'em. Here's one," laying his hand upon his breast.
"No. A man that never will die?"
"How can I answer such a question as that? Perhaps Ronayne, there, may be such a one."
"How stupid you are! I mean, did you ever meet a man whocouldn'tdie?"
"Never,—if he went the right way about it."
"Then, according to your showing, you have never seen a good man." She leans back again in her chair, fatigued but satisfied.
"I'm afraid they are few and far between," says Hermia.
"Now and again theyhaveappeared," says Mr. Kelly, with a modest glance. "Perhaps I shall never die."
"Don't make us more unhappy than we need be," says Mrs. Herrick, plaintively.
"How sad that good men should be so scarce!" says Miss Fitzgerald, with a glance she means to be funny, but which is only dull.
"Don't make trite remarks, Bella," says Mrs. Bohun, languidly. "You know if you did meet one he would bore you to death. The orthodox good man, the oppressive being we read about, but never see, is unknown to me or you, for which I, at least, am devoutly grateful."
"To return to old Browne," says Ulic: "he wasn't good, if you like. He was a horrid ill-tempered, common old fellow, thoroughly without education of any kind."
"He went through college, however, as he was fond of boasting whenever he got the chance."
"And when he didn't get it he made it."
"In at one door and out at the other, that's how he went through Trinity," says Mr. Kelly. "Oh, how I hated that dear old man, andhowhe hated me!"
"You admit, then, the possibility of your being hated?" says Mrs. Herrick.
"I have admitted that ever since—I met—you! But old Browne bore me a special grudge."
"And your sin against him?"
"I never fathomed it. 'The atrocious crime of being a young man,' principally, I think. Once, I certainly locked him up in his own wine-cellar, and left him there for six hours, under the pretence that I believed him to be a burglar, but nothing more. He quite disliked being locked in the cellar, I think. It was very dark, I must admit. But I'm not afraid of the dark."
"That'sa good thing," says Madam O'Connor, entering, "because it will soon envelop you. Did any one ever see so dark an evening for the time of year? Well, I do think that fire looks cheerful, though itiswarm. Has Mary Browne come down yet?"
"No. Come here, Madam; here's a cosey seat I have been keeping sacred for you for the past hour. Why have you denied us the light of your countenance all this weary time?"
"Get out with you now, and your fine compliments to an old woman!" says Madam, laughing. "If I wereyoursweetheart, Owen, I'd never believe a word out of your lips."
Mrs. Herrick, laying down her knitting, raises her head, and looks full into Kelly's eyes. As she does so, a smile, lovely as it is unexpected, warms all her statuesque face into perfect beauty.
"And this to me!" says Kelly, addressing his hostess, and pretending to be blind to Mrs. Herrick's glance. "All the afternoon I have been treated by your sex with the most consummate cruelty. With their tongues they have been stabbing me as with so many knives. But yours is the unkindest cut of all. It is, in fact, the—er—carving-knife!"
"Oh! here's the tea," says Olga, in a pleased tone. "Madam,pleaselet me pour it out to-night?"
"Of course, my love, and thank you too."
"And may I to-morrow evening?" asks Monica, with childish eagerness and a quick warm blush.
"You may, indeed, my pretty one; and I hope it won't be long before you pour me out my tea in your own house."
Monica laughs, and kisses her, and Desmond, who is standing near them, stoops over Madam O'Connor and tells her he would like to kiss her too,—first, for her own sake, and secondly, for that sweet hope of hers just uttered.
"Not a bit of it," says she, in return, in a tone as sprightly as it was twenty years ago, though too low for Monica to hear. "Your first and second reasons are all humbug. Say at once you want to kiss me because you think this child's caress still lingers on my lips. Ah ha!—you see I know more than you think, my lad. And hark you, Brian, come here till I whisper a word in your ear; I'm your friend, boy, in the matter, and I wish you luck, though Priscilla Blake kill me for it; that's what I want to say."
"I couldn't desire a better friend," says Brian gratefully.
"And where on earthisMary Browne?" says Madam O'Connor. "She is such a nice girl, though hardly a Venus. Owen, my dear, I want you to take her down to dinner, and to make yourself charming to her."
"I shall be only too pleased," says Mr. Kelly, faintly; and then he sinks back in his chair and covers his face with his hands.
"We were talking about Miss Browne's father; he was quite a millionaire, wasn't he?" says Lord Rossmoyne, who is standing at the tea-table beside Olga. He is a very rich man himself, and has, therefore, a due regard for riches in others.
"He was,—and the most unpleasant person I ever met in my life, into the bargain," says Madam O'Connor. "I'm sure the life he led that poor Mary!—I never felt more relieved at anything than at the news of his death."
"I feel as if I could weep for Mary," says Mr. Kelly, in an aside to Mrs. Herrick, who takes no notice of him. "I wonder if she has got a little lamb," he goes on, unrebuked.
"What about the lamb?" says Madam, whose ears are young as ever.
"I was only conjecturing as to whether your cousin Mary had a little lamb," says Mr. Kelly, genially. "The old Mary had, you know. A dear little animal with its
'Fleece as white as snow;And everywhere that Mary wentThe lamb was sure to go.'
'Fleece as white as snow;And everywhere that Mary wentThe lamb was sure to go.'
You recollect, don't you? What does Miss Browne do with hers? Has she got it upstairs in her room, now? After all,—though the idea is sweetly pretty,—I think there might be certain places into which it would be awkward to have even the whitest lamb trotting after one. Eh?"
"I suppose Miss Browne is rich enough to indulge in any vagaries that may occur to her," says Bella Fitzgerald.
"There's nothing like money," says Olga, with a sigh; at which Lord Rossmoyne looks hopeful, and young Ronayne despondent.
"Like leather, you mean," says Owen Kelly: "that's the real thing to get hold of."
"Some people would doanythingfor money," says Miss Fitzgerald, with a spiteful glance in Olga's direction. "They would sell themselves for it." Here she turns her cold eyes upon Ronayne, who is standing erect, handsome, but unmistakably miserable.
"They could hardly sell themselves for a more profitable article," says Olga, with a fine shrug of her soft shoulders.
"Sotheythink. Crœsus, we know, was, and is, allpowerful."
"Oh, no," says Olga, with a little silvery laugh; "you forget my dear Bella. Read it up again, and you will see that Crœsus was once conquered by Cyrus. What became of his power then?"
Her lashes cover her eyes for a moment, and when she lifts them again they are fixed on Ronayne. By some coquettish art she gives him to understand in this single glance that he is Cyrus, Lord Rossmoyne Crœsus. He can conquer the rich lord if he will.
"How idle you are, Mr. Ronayne!" she says aloud. "Come here directly and help me. You know I cannot do withoutyourhelp." There is the most delicate emphasis possible upon the pronoun. Obedient to her command, he comes, as Rossmoyne, armed with the cups, crosses the hall to Hermia and Miss Fitzgerald.
"Did your eyes speak true just now?" he asks, bending over her under pretext of helping her with the cups.
"What is truth?" asks she, in turn, with a swift upward glance."Who knows aught of her? She lies buried in a deep well, does she not? Who shall drag her forth?"
She smiles, yet in a somewhat constrained fashion, that assorts ill with the inborn self-possession that as a rule characterizes her. She glances at him hurriedly. How young and handsome and earnest he looks! How full of tenderest entreaty! There is, too, a touch of melancholy in his dark eyes that never came to the birth (she is fain to acknowledge to herself with a pang of remorse) until that day when first they look on her.
He loves her,—that she knows; but Rossmoyne loves her too; and though Ronayne's rent-roll is by no means to bedespised, still it counts but as a small one beside that of Rossmoyne's.
And Hermia is right! a titleisof use in the world; and nothing is so lasting or so satisfactory as a respectable book at one's banker's. A good match (Hermia again) is the one thing to be desired; it covers all sins. Advice such as this coming from Mrs. Herrick is thoroughly disinterested, as the late lamented Mr. Herrick, having behaved to her like a brute during their mercifully short married life, had died in the odor of sanctity, leaving her complete mistress of all his enormous wealth, and quite free to make a second marriage of herownchoosing.
With her (Olga), however, the case is widely different; she is indeed without encumbrances so far as children may so be termed, and she has sufficient means to enable her to get her gowns and things from Paris, but there her independence ends.
As she runs over all this hurriedly in her mind, the desire for riches grows upon her. Yes, there is certainly a great deal of good in Rossmoyne, besides his income; and perhaps a solid sternness is preferable to an airy gayety of manner (this with an irrepressible leaning towards the "airy gayety"); and—and—what apityit is that Rossmoyne is not Ulic!——
"I will," says Ronayne, alluding to her last remark, in a low but determined tone. "Olga, tell me I am more to you than Rossmoyne."
"The boy you are!" says Olga, with an adorable smile that reaches him through the flickering flashes of the firelight. "The baby!" He is bending over her, and with a light caressing touch she brushes back the hair from his temples. "In a year, nay, in a month, once we are separated, you will see some other face, newer, more desirable, and forget you ever cared for mine."
"If I could believe that, I might find peace. Yet, for all that peace could give me, I would not so believe it. I am yours forever, boythoughyou deem me; and, yet, is one ever a boy again when one has once truly loved?"
"How often have you truly loved?" with an attempt at lightness that is down-trodden by the intensity of her regard.
"As often as I have seen you. Nay, more than that, every moment since I first saw you; because night and day, whether absent or present, I have been yours in heart and soul."
"You have fatigued yourself!—A long two months!" laughingly.
"A short two months."
"There has been no time for fickleness."
"There never will be, so far as I am concerned. So sure am I of that, that I do not mind praying that Cupid's curse may light upon me if ever I prove unfaithful. You know it?"
"I have but small acquaintance with cursing of any sort."
"Then learn this one,—
'They that do change old love for new,Pray gods they change for worse!'
'They that do change old love for new,Pray gods they change for worse!'
Will you repeat that after me?"
"Wait until I finish my tea; and—unkind as you are—you will give me a little bit of cake, won't you?"
"I would give you everything I possess, if I could."
"You don't possess this cake, you know: it is Madam O'Connor's."
"Oh, Olga, why will you always press me backwards? Am I never to be nearer to you than I am now?"
"I don't see how you could conveniently be very much nearer," says Mrs. Bohun,witha soft laugh.
"After all, I suppose I come under the head of either madman or fool," says Ronayne, sadly. "You are everything to me; I am less than nothing to you."
"Is Lord Rossmoyne to come under the head of 'nothing'? How rude!" says Olga.
"I never thought of him. I was thinking only of how hopelessly I love you."
"Love! How should such a baby as you grasp even the meaning of that word?" says Olga, letting her white lids droop until their long lashes lie upon her cheeks like shadows, while she raises her cup with indolent care to her lips. "Do you really think you know what it means?"
"'The dredeful joy, alway that flit so yerne,All this mene I by Love,'"
"'The dredeful joy, alway that flit so yerne,All this mene I by Love,'"
quotes he, very gently; after which he turns away, and, going over to the fireplace again, flings himself down dejectedly at Monica's feet.
"Are you tired, Mr. Ronayne?" says Monica, very gently. Something in his beautiful face tells her that matters are not going well with him.
"Tired? no," lifting his eyes to her with a smile that belies his words. "It is good of you to ask, though. I wish," earnestly,"you would not call me 'Mr. Ronayne.' I can't bear it from any one I like. Desmond tell her to call me Ulic."
It strikes both Monica and Brian as peculiar that he should appeal to the latter as to one possessed of a certain influence over the former. It strikes Miss Fitzgerald in the same light too, who has been listening to his impetuous entreaty.
Seeing there is something wrong with him, something that might be termed excitement in his manner, Desmond whispers to Monica to do as he desires.
"He is unhappy about something; let him feel you are his friend," he says, in a low tone.
"Come a little farther from the fire, Ulic,—a little nearer to me," says Monica, in a tone of shy friendliness, "and I think you will be more comfortable."
He is more than grateful, I think, though he says nothing only he moves a good deal closer to her, and lays his head against her knee in a brotherly fashion,—need I say unrebuked?
Something in this little scene sends the blood rushing with impatient fervor through Olga's veins. But that she knows Monica well, and that the girl is dear to her, she could have hated her heartily at this moment, without waiting to analyze the motive for her dislike. As it is, she gives the reins to her angry spirit, and lets it drive her where it will. She laughs quite merrily, and says some pretty playful thing to Lord Rossmoyne that all the world can hear,—and Ronayne, be assured, the first of all.
Desmond, with a subdued touch of surprise in his eyes, turns to look at her. But the night has darkened with sullen haste—tired, perhaps, of the day's ill temper—and standing as he does within the magic circle of the firelight, he finds a difficulty in conquering the gloom beyond. This makes his gaze in her direction the more concentrated; and, indeed, when he has separated her features from the mist of the falling night, he still finds it impossible to pierce the impenetrable veil of indifference that covers her every feature.
His gaze thus necessarily prolonged is distasteful to her.
"Brian, don't keep staring at the teapot in that mean fashion," she says, playfully, yet with a latent sense of impatience in her tone. "It is unworthy of you. Go up to Madam O'Connornobly, cup in hand, and I daresay—if you ask her prettily—she will grant me permission to give you a cup of tea."
Desmond, recovering from his revery with a start accepts the situation literally.
"Will you, Madam?" he says, meekly. "Do." His tone is of the most abject. There is a perceptible trembling about his knee-joints. "Isthisthe 'air noble'?" he says to Olga, in an undertone. "Have I caught it?"
"You'll catch it in a minute in real earnest, if you don't mend your manners," says Madam, with a laugh. "Give him his tea, Olga, my dear, though he doesn't deserve it."
"Sugar?" says Olga, laconically.
"Yes, please," mendaciously.
"Then you shan't have even one lump, if only to punish you for all your misconduct."
"I thought as much," says Brian, taking his cup thankfully. "Fact is, I can't bear sugar but I knew you would drop it in, in an unlimited degree, if I said the other thing. Not that I have the vaguest notion as to how I have misconducted myself. If I knew, I might set a watch upon my lips."
"Set it on youreyes," says Olga, with meaning.
At this moment a light footfall is heard, and somebody comes slowly across the hall. A merry tongue of fire, flaming upwards, declares it to be the plain Miss Browne.
Mrs. O'Connor has just passed into an adjoining room. Olga is busy with her tray and with her thoughts. Mrs. Herrick, partly turned aside, and oblivious of the approaching guest, is conversing in low tones with Lord Rossmoyne.
No one, therefore, is ready to give the stranger welcome and put her through the ceremony of introduction. Awkwardness is impending, when Monica comes to the rescue. Her innate sense of kindly courtesy conquering her shyness, she rises from her seat, and going up to Miss Browne, who has come to a standstill, lays her hand softly upon hers.
"Come over here and sit by me," she says, nervously, yet with such a gracious sweetness that the stranger's heart goes out to her on the spot, and Brian Desmond, if it be possible, falls more in love with her than ever.
"Thank you," says Miss Browne, pressing gratefully the little hand that lies on hers; and then every one wakes into life and says something civil to her.
Five minutes later the dressing-bell rings, and the scene is at an end.
How Mrs. Herrick grows worldly-wise and Olga frivolous—How Mr. Kelly tells a little story; and how, beneath the moonlight, many things are made clear.
How Mrs. Herrick grows worldly-wise and Olga frivolous—How Mr. Kelly tells a little story; and how, beneath the moonlight, many things are made clear.
Dinner has come to an end. The men are still dallying with their wine. The women are assembled in the drawing-room.
Olga, having drawn back the curtains from the central window, is standing in its embrasure, looking out silently upon the glories of the night. For the storm has died away; the wind is gone to sleep; the rain has sobbed itself to death; and now a lovely moon is rising slowly—slowly—from behind a rippled mass of grayest cloud. From out the dark spaces in the vault above a few stars are shining,—the more brilliantly because of the blackness that surrounds them. The air is sultry almost to oppressiveness, and the breath of the roses that have twined themselves around the railings of the balcony renders the calm night full of sweetest fragrance.
Even as she gazes, spellbound, the clouds roll backward, and stars grow and multiply exceedingly, until all
"the floor of heavenIs thick inlaid with patines of bright gold."
"the floor of heavenIs thick inlaid with patines of bright gold."
Madam O'Connor is talking to Miss Browne of certain family matters interesting to both. Miss Fitzgerald has gone upstairs, either to put on another coating of powder, or else to scold her long-suffering maid. Her mother has fallen into a gentle, somewhat noisy snooze.
A sudden similar thought striking both Monica and Mrs. Herrick at the same moment, they rise, and make a step towards the window where Olga is standing all alone.
Hermia, laying her hand on Monica's arm, entreats her by a gesture to change her purpose; whereon Monica falls back again, and Hermia, going on, parts the curtains, and, stepping in to where Olga is, joins her uninvited.
"Dreaming?" she says, lightly.
"Who would not dream on such a night as this? the more beautiful because of the miserable day to which it is a glorious termination. See, Hermia, how those planets gleam and glitter, as though in mockery of us poor foolish mortals down below."
"I don't feel a bit more foolish than I did this morning," says Hermia. "Do you, dear? You were giving yourself a great deal of credit for your common sense then."
"'Common sense,'—worldly wisdom,—how I hate the sound of all that jargon!" says Olga, petulantly. "Let us forget wemustbe wise, if only for one night. The beauty of that silent world of flowers beyond has somehow entered into me. Let me enjoy it. 'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon that bank' down there! Watch it. Can you see how the roses quiver beneath its touch, as though stirred by some happy dream?"
"It is indeed a perfect night!" says Hermia, looking at her in some surprise. There is a suspicion of excitement in Olga's manner—arising, as it were, from the desire to hide one emotion by the betrayal of another—that strikes her listener as strange.
"How softly the air beats upon one's face!" says Mrs. Bohun, leaning a little forward. "The night is, as you say, perfect. Yet I don't know what is the matter with me: the more I feel the loveliness of all around, the sadder my heart seems to grow."
"What!" says Hermia, lifting her brows, "am I to learn now that you—the gayest of all mortals—have at last succumbed to the insufferable dreariness of this merry world?"
"You run too fast. I am a little perplexed, perhaps; but I have not succumbed to anything."
"Or anyone, I hope, unless it be to your advantage. You are playing a silly game, Olga."
"The world would be lost unless it had a fool to sport with now and then."
"But why shouldyoube the one to pander to its pleasures?"
"Who more fitting? I am tired of hearing you apply that word 'silly' to me, morning,noon, and night."
"It is too late to believe it possible that you and I should quarrel,"saysMrs. Herrick, in a perfectly even tone: "so don't try to get up an imaginary grievance. You know you are dearer to me than anything on earth, after the children."
"Well, don't scold me any more," says Olga, coaxingly.
"I never scold; I only reason."
"Oh! but that is so much worse," says Olga. "It means the scolding, and a lot more besides. Do anything but reason with me, my dear Hermia."
"Iwillsay that I think you are throwing yourself away."
"Where? Over the balcony?"—wilfully. "I assure you, you misjudge me: I am far too great a coward."
"You are not too great a coward to contemplate the committing of a much more seriousbetise. To-night his attentions were specially marked, and you allowed them."
"I can't think what you mean."
"Will you deny that Mr. Ronayne paid you very marked attention to-night?"
"Marked! Where did he make his impression, then? He didn'tpinchme, if you mean that."
"Of course you can follow your own wishes, dearest, and I shall neither gain nor lose; but it does seem a pity, when you might be a countess and have the world at your feet. I know few so altogether fitted to fill the position, and still you reject it. You are pretty, clever, charming,—everything of the most desirable."
"Am I?" She steps into the drawing-room, and brings herself by a swift step or two opposite a huge mirror let into one of the walls. Standing before it, she surveys herself leisurely from head to foot, and then she smiles.
"I don't know about the 'clever,'" she says; "but I amsureI am pretty. In town last season—do you remember?—my hair created quite a furore, it is so peculiarly light. Ever so many people wanted to paint me. Yes, it was all very pleasant."
"Do you think it will be as pleasant to livehereall your days, and find no higher ambition than the hope that your ponies may be prettier than Mrs. So-and-so's?"
"Do you remember that fancy ball, and how the prince asked who I was, and all the rest of it? He said one or two very pretty things to me. He, like you, said I was charming. Do you know," naively, "I have never got over the feeling of beingobligedto any one who pays me a compliment? I am obliged toyounow."
"And to the princethen. But you won't see many princes if you stay in Ireland, I fancy: they don't hanker after the soil."
"Poor Ireland!" says Mrs. Bohun.
"And compliments, I should say, will be almost as scarce."
"Ah! now,thereyou are wrong:theyfly beneath these murky skies. We absolutely revel in them. What true Irishman but has one ripping freely from his mouth on the very smallest chance? And then, my dear Hermia, consider, are we not the proud possessors of the blarney-stone?"
"I wish, dearest, you would bring yourself to think seriously of Rossmoyne."
"I do think seriously of him. It would be impossible to think of him in any other way, he is so dull and pompous."
"He would make an excellent husband!"
"I have had enough of husbands. They are very unsatisfactory people. And besides——"
"Well?"
"Rossmoyne has a temper."
"And forty thousand a year."
"Not good enough."
"If you are waiting for an angel, you will wait forever. All men are——"
"Oh, Hermia! really, Ican'tlisten to such naughty words, you know. I really wonder at you!"
"I wasn't going to say anything of the kind," says Hermia, with great haste, not seeing the laughter lurking in Olga's dark eyes. "I merely meant that——"
"Don't explain!—don't!" says Olga; "I couldn't endure any more of it." And she laughs aloud.
"Rossmoyne is very devoted to you. Is there anything against him, except his temper?"
"Yes, his beard.Nothingwould induce me to marry a man with hair all over his face. It isn'tclean."
"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with it."
"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with himself too," says Olga, provokingly. "Really. Ithinkone thing would please me just as much as the other."
"Oh, then, you are bent on refusing him?" says Hermia, calmly. With very few people does she ever lose her temper; with Olga—never.
"I am not so sure of that, at all," says Olga, airily. "It is quite within the possibilities that I may marry him some time or other,—sooner or later. There is a delightful vagueness about those two dates that gives me the warmest encouragement."
"It is a pity you cannot be serioussometimes," says Mrs. Herrick, mildly.
A little hand upon her gown saves further expostulation. A little face looking up with a certainty of welcome into hers brings again that wonderful softness into Hermia's eyes.
"Is it you, my sweetest?" she says, fondly. "And wherehave you been? I have watched in vain for you for the last half-hour, my Fay."
"I was in the dining-room. But nurse called me; and now I have come to say good-night," says the child.
"Good-night, then, and God bless you, my chick. But where is my Georgie?"
"I'm here," says Georgie, gleefully, springing upon her in a violent fashion, that one would have believed hateful to the calm Hermia, yet that is evidently most grateful to her. She embraces the boy warmly, and lets her eyes follow him until he is out of sight. Then she turns again to the little maiden at her side.
"I must go with Georgie," says the child.
"So you shall. But first tell me, what have you got in your hand?"
"Something to go to bed with. See, mammy! It is a pretty red plum," opening her delicate pink fist, for her mother's admiration.
"Where did you get it, darling?"
"In the dining-room."
"From Lord Rossmoyne?"
"No. From Mr. Kelly. I would not have the one Lord Rossmoyne gave me."
Olga laughs mischievously, and Mrs. Herrick colors.
"Why?" she says.
"Because I like Mr. Kelly best."
"And what did you give him?"
"Nothing."
"Not even a kiss?" says Olga.
"No," somewhat shamefacedly.
"Her mother's own daughter!" says Olga, caressing the child tenderly, but laughing still. "A chilly mortal."
"Good-night, my own," says Hermia, and the child, having kissed them both again, runs away.
Olga follows her with wistful eyes.
"I almost wish I had a baby!" she says.
"You?Why, you can't take care of yourself! You are the least fitted to have a child of any woman that I know. Leave all such charges to staid people like me. Why, you are a baby at heart, yourself, this moment."
"That would be no drawback. It would only have created sympathy between me and my baby. I would have understood all her bad moods and condoned all her crimes."
"If you had been a mother, you would have had a very naughty child."
"I should have had a very happy child, at least." Then she laughs. "Fancy me with a dear little baby!" she says,—"a thing all my own, that would rub its soft cheek against mine and love me better than anything!"
"And rumple all your choicest Parisian gowns, and pull your hair to pieces. I couldn't fancy it at all."
Here the door opens to admit the men, the celestial half-hour after dinner having come to an end. With one consent they all converge towards the window, where Olga and Hermia are standing with Monica, who had joined them to bid good-night to little Fay. Miss Fitzgerald, who had returned to the drawing-room freshly powdered, seeing how the tide runs, crosses the room too, and mingles with the group in the window.
"How long you have been! We feared you dead and buried," she says to Kelly, with elephantine playfulness.
"We have, indeed. I thought the other men would never stir. Why did you not give me the chance of leaving them? The faintest suggestion thatyouwanted me would have brought me herehoursago."
"If I had been sure of that, I should have sent you a message; it would have saved me a lecture," says Olga, flashing a smile at Hermia.
"I should disdain to send a message," says the proud Bella, "I would notcompelany man's presence. 'Come if you will; stay away if you won't,' ismymotto; and I cannot help thinking I am right."
"You are, indeed, quite right. Coercion is of small avail insomecases," says Olga, regarding her with the calm dignity of one who plainly considers the person addressed of very inferior quality indeed.
"A woman can scarcely be too jealous of her rights nowadays," says Miss Fitzgerald. "If she has a proper knowledge of her position, she ought to guard it carefully."
"A fine idea finely expressed!" says Kelly, as though smitten into reverence by the grandeur of her manner.
"I wonder what is a man's proper position?" says Olga lazily.
"He will always find it at a woman's feet," says Miss Fitzgerald, grandly, elated by Kelly's apparent subjection.
That young man looks blankly round him. Under tablesand chairs and lounges his eyes penetrate, but without the desired result.
"So sorry I can't see a footstool anywhere!" he says, lifting regretful eyes to Miss Fitzgerald; "but for that I should be at your feet from this until you bid me rise."
"Hypocrite!" says Olga in his ear; after which conversation becomes more general; and presently Miss Fitzgerald goes back to the fire under the mistaken impression that probably one of the men will follow her there.
Theone—whoever he is—doesn't.
"Do you know," says Mr. Kelly, in a low tone, to the others, "the ugly girl's awfully nice! She is a pleasant deceit. 'She has no winsome looks, no pretty frowning,' I grant you; but she can hold her own, and issogood-humored."
"What a lovely night!" says Monica, gazing wistfully into the misty depths of the illuminated darkness beyond. "I want to step into it, and—we have not been out all day."
"Then why not go now?" says Hermia, answering her glance in a kindly spirit.
"Ah!willyou come?" says Monica, brightening into glad excitement.
"Let us go as far as the fountain in the lower garden," says Olga: "it is always beautiful there when the moon is up."
"Avoid the grass, however; wet feet are dangerous," says Lord Rossmoyne, carefully.
"You will die an old bachelor," retorts Olga, saucily, "if you take so much 'thought for the morrow.'"
"It will certainly not be my fault if I do," returns Rossmoyne, calmly, but with evident meaning.
"Mrs. Bohun, bring your guitar," says Desmond, "and we will make Ronayne sing to it, and so imagine ourselves presently in the land of the olive and the palm."
"Shall we ask the others to come with us?" says Monica, kindly, glancing back into the drawing-room.
"Miss Browne, for example," suggests Owen Kelly. If he hopes by this speech to arouse jealousy in anybody present, he finds himself, later on, mightily mistaken.
"If she is as good a sort as you say, I daresay she would like it," says Olga. "And, besides, if we leave her to Bella's tender mercies she will undoubtedly be done to death by the time we return."
"Oh, do go and rescue her," says Mrs. Herrick, turning to Kelly. Her tone is almost appealing.
"Perhaps Miss Fitzgerald will come too," says Monica, somewhat fearfully.
"Don't be afraid," says Olga. "FancyBella running the risk of having a bad eye or a pink nose in the morning! She knows much better than that."
"Tell Miss Browne to make haste," says Mrs. Herrick, turning to Kelly. "Because we are impatient,—we are longing to precipitate ourselves into the moonlight. Come, Olga; come, Monica; they can follow."
Miss Browne, however, on being appealed to, shows so honest a disregard for covering of any sort, beyond what decency had already clothed her with, that she and Kelly catch up with the others even before the fountain is reached.
It is, indeed, a fairy dell to which they have been summoned,—a magic circle, closed in by evergreens with glistening leaves. "Dark with excessive light" appears the scene; the marble basin of the fountain, standing out from the deep background, gleams snow-white beneath Diana's touch. "The moon's an arrant thief." Perchance she snatches from great Sol some beauties even rarer than that "pale fire" he grants her—it may be, against his will. So it may well be thought, for what fairest day can be compared with a moonlit night in languorous July?
The water of the fountain, bubbling ever upwards, makes sweet music on the silent air; but, even as they hark to it, a clearer, sweeter music makes the night doubly melodious. From bough to bough it comes and goes,—a heavenly harmony, not to be reproduced by anything of earthly mould.