"O nightingale, that on yon gloomy sprayWarbles at eve, when all the woods are still,Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill."
"O nightingale, that on yon gloomy sprayWarbles at eve, when all the woods are still,Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill."
Clear from the depths of the pine woods beyond, the notes ascend, softly, tenderly. Not often do they enrich our Irish air, but sometimes they come to gladden us with a music that can hardly be termed of earth. The notes rise and swell and die, only to rise and to slowly fade again, like "linked sweetness long drawn out."
Seating themselves on the edge of the fountain, they acknowledge silently the beauty of the hour. Olga's hand, moving through the water, breaks it into little wavelets on which the riotous moonbeams dance.
"Where are your bangles, Olga? you used to be famous for them?" asks Desmond, idly.
"I have tired of them."
"Poor bangles!" says Ulic Ronayne, in a low tone heard only by her.
"What a heavy sigh!"
"A selfish one, too. More for myself than for the discarded bangles. Yet their grievance is mine."
"I thought they suited you," says Desmond.
"Did you? Well, but they had grown so common; every one used to go about laden with them. And then they made such a tiresome tinkle-tinkle all over the place."
"What place?" says Lord Rossmoyne, who objects to slang of even the mildest description from any woman's lips, most of all from the lips of her whom he hopes to call his wife.
"Don't be stupid!"saysthis prospective wife,withconsiderable petulance.
"You are fickle, I doubt," goes on Rossmoyne, unmoved. "A few months ago you raved about your bangles, and had the prettiest assortment I think I ever saw. Thirty-six on each arm, or something like it. We used to call them your armor. You said you were obliged to wear the same amount exactly on each arm, lest you might grow crooked."
"I know few things more unpleasant than having one's silly remarks brought up to one years afterwards," says Olga, with increasingtemper.
"Monthsnotyears," says Rossmoyne, carefully. Whereupon Mrs. Bohun turns her back upon him, and Mrs. Herrick tells herself she would like to give him a good shake for so stupidly trying to ruin his own game, and Ulic Ronayne feels he is on the brink of swearing with him an eternal friendship.
"Bangles?" breaks in Owen Kelly, musingly. "Harmless little circular things women wear on their wrists, aren't they? But awkward too at times,—amazingly awkward. As Olga has feelingly remarked, theycanmake a marvellously loud tinkle-tinkle at times. I know a little story about bangles, that ought to be a warning against the use of them. Would any one like to hear my little story? It is short, but very sweet."
Every one instantly says "Yes," except Olga, who has drawn herself together and is regarding him with a stony glare.
"Well, there was once on a time a young woman, who had some bangles, and a young man; she had other things too, such as youth and beauty, but they weren't half so important as the first two items; and wherever she and her bangles went,there went the young man too. And for a long time nobody knew which he loved best, the beauteous maiden or the gleaming bangles. Do I make myself clear?"
"Wonderfully so, foryou," says Mrs. Herrick.
"Well one day the young man's preference was made 'wonderfully so' too. And it was in this wise. On a certain sunny afternoon, the young woman found herself in a conservatory that opened off a drawing-room, being divided from it only by a hanging Indian curtain; ahangedIndian curtain she used to call it ever afterwards; but that was bad grammar, and bad manners too."
"I feel I'm going to sleep," says Desmond, drowsily. "I hope somebody will rouse me when he has done, or pick me out of the water if I drop into it. Such a rigmarole of a story I never heard in my life."
"Caviare can't be appreciated by the general; it is too strong for you," says Mr. Kelly, severely. "But to continue——Anything wrong with you, my dear Olga?"
"Nothing!" says Mrs. Bohun, with icy indignation.
"Well. In this conservatory my heroine of the bangles found herself; and here, too, as a natural consequence, was found the young man. There was near them a lounge,—skimpy enough for one, buttheyfound it amply large fortwo. Curious fact in itself, wasn't it? And I think the young man so far forgot himself as to begin to make violent——and just as he was about to emb——the young woman, whose name was——, she very properly, but with somewhat mistaken haste, moved away from him, and in so doing set all her bangles a-tinkling. Into full cry they burst, whereupon the curtain was suddenly drawn back from the drawing-room side, giving the people there a full view of the conservatoryandits—contents! Thedenouementwas full of interest,—positively thrilling! I should advise all true lovers of a really good novel to obtain this book from their libraries and discover it for themselves."
Here Mr. Kelly stops, and looks genially around.
"I think I shall take to writing reviews," he says, sweetly. "I like my own style."
A dead silence follows his "little story," and then Mrs. Herrick lifts her eyes to his.
"'I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick: nobody marks you,'" she quotes, with a touch of scorn.
"Youdo, my dear Lady Disdain, or else you would not have addressed me thatcontemptuousremark."
"An absurd story, altogether!" says Olga, throwing up her head, a smile lightening her eyes as they meet Kelly's. At her tone, which is more amused than annoyed, Ronayne lets his hand fall into the water close to hers, and doubtless finds its cool touch (the water's, I mean, of course) very refreshing, as it is fully five minutes before he brings it to the surface again.
"True, nevertheless," says Kelly. "Both the principals in my story were friends of mine. I knew—indeed, I may safely say Iknow—them well."
"I am glad you said 'were,'" says Olga, shaking her blonde head at him. Lord Rossmoyne, by this time, is looking as black as a thunder-cloud.
"A questionable friend you must be, to tell tales out of school," says Mrs. Herrick.
"I defy any one to say I have told anything," says Kelly, with much-injured innocence. "But I am quite prepared to hear my actions, as usual, grossly maligned. I am accustomed to it now. The benefit of the doubt is not forme."
"There isn't a doubt," says Hermia.
"Go on. I must try to bear it,"—meekly. "I know I am considered incapable of a pure motive."
"Was it you drew back the curtain?"
"Well, really, yes, I believe it was. I wanted my friend, you see, and I knew I should find him with the bangles. Yes; it was I drew the curtain."
"Just what I should have expected from you," says Mrs. Herrick.
"Ah! Thank you! Now at last you are beginning to see things in their true light, and to take my part," says Mr. Kelly, with exaggerated gratitude. "Now, indeed, I feel I have not lived in vain! You have, though at a late hour, recognized the extraordinary promptitude that characterizes my every action. While another might have been hesitating, I drew the curtain. I am seldom to be found wanting, I may, indeed, always be discovered just where——"
"Youaren'twanting," interrupts Mrs. Herrick, with a sudden smile.
"How canthatbe," says Kelly, with reproachful sadness, "when I am generally to be found near you?"
At this Hermia gives in, and breaks into a low soft laugh.
"But I wish you had not told that story of Olga and Mr.Ronayne," she says, in a whisper, and with some regret. "You saw how badly Rossmoyne took it."
"That is partly why I told it. I think you are wrong in trying to make that marriage: she would be happier with Ronayne."
"For a month or two, perhaps."
"Oh, make itthree," says Kelly, satirically. "Surely the little winged god has so much staying power."
"A few weeks ago you told me you did not believe in him at all."
"I have changed all that."
"Ah!youcan be fickle too."
"A man is not necessarily fickle because when he discovers the only true good he leaves the bad and presses towards it. I think, too, his mentor," in a lowered tone, "should be the last to misjudge him."
"Nothing is so lasting, at least, as riches," says Mrs. Herrick, with a chastened but unmistakable desire to change his mood. "Olga with unlimited means and an undeniable place in the world of society would be a happier Olga than as the wife of a country gentleman."
"I don't agree with you; but you know best—perhaps. You speak your own sentiments, of course. A title is indispensable to you too, as well as to her?"
His tone is half a question.
"It counts," she says, slowly, trifling with firm though slender fingers with the grasses that are growing in the interstices of the marble.
"Pshaw!" says Kelly. Rising with a vehemence foreign to him, he crosses to where Ulic Ronayne is standing alone.
How Olga drowns a faithful servant—How Mr. Kelly conjures up a ghost—And how Monica, beneath the mystic moonbeams, grants the gift she first denies.
How Olga drowns a faithful servant—How Mr. Kelly conjures up a ghost—And how Monica, beneath the mystic moonbeams, grants the gift she first denies.
"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" he says, lightly, laying his hand on Ulic's shoulder. The latter turns to him with a bright smile that renders his handsome face quite beautiful. Seeing its charm, Kelly asks himself, in half-angry fashion, how Olga can possibly hesitate for one moment between himand Rossmoyne. "But they are all alike heartless," he decides, bitterly.
"I am feeling neither pale nor wan," says Ronayne, still smiling. "It must be the moon, if anything. Look here, Kelly, something to-night has told me that it will all come right in the end. I shall gain her against the heaviest odds."
"If you mean Rossmoyne, he's the heaviest mortal I know," says Kelly.
"Well, heisn'tsuited to her, is he?" There is a strange excitement in Ronayne's manner. "Putting me out of the question altogether, I don't believe he could make her happy. If I thought he could, of course I should then go away somewhere, and find contentment in the thought of hers; but——youdon't think she would do well to marry him do you Kelly?" He has controlled his features to an almost marvellous calm, but the agony of his question in his eyes cannot be hid.
"I think the woman who could evenhesitatebetween you and him must be a fool and worse," says Kelly, whose temper is not his own to-night. "He is a pedantic ass, more in love with himself than he can ever be with anything else. While you——Look here, Ronayne; I wonder if any woman isworthit."
"Oh,sheis," says Ronayne, with tender conviction. "I don't think she is at all like other people; do you? There's something different—somethingspecial—about her."
"I daresay," says Kelly, gently, which is rather good of him, considering his frame of mind.
"You're an awfully kind sort of fellow, Kelly, do you know?" says Ronayne, slipping his arm through his. "You are the only one I ever talk to abouther. And I suppose I must bore you, though you don't say it. It's the most generous thing I know, your sympathizing with me as you do. If you were in love yourself, I could understand it. But you are not, you know."
"Oh, no; of course not," says Mr. Kelly.
"Is that your guitar, Mrs. Bohun? I wish you would sing us something," says Miss Browne at this moment.
"I don't sing much,—and never out of doors, it hurts my throat so," says Olga, smiling at her; "but if any else will sing, I will gladly play to them."
"Mr. Ronayne,—Ulic,—come here," says Monica, half shyly, but very sweetly. "You can sing, I know."
"Yes come here," says Olga, turning to him, and away from Lord Rossmoyne, who is talking to her in low, short,angry tones. But the latter, laying his hand on her arm, half compels her to turn to him again.
"Let some one else accompany him if hemustsing," he says; "anyone but you."
"No one else can."
"I object to your doing it."
"You won't when you hear him; he singssosweetly," with the prettiest, most enthusiastic smile. "You really should hear him."
"You persist, then? you compel me to believe the worst,—to regard you as implicated in that story of Kelly's."
"I compel you to nothing. And as for the story, I thought it very amusing: didn't you?"
"No!" says Rossmoyne, with subdued fury.
"Do you know, I often said you lacked humor?" says Mrs. Bohun, with a little airy laugh; "and now I am sure of it. I thought it intensely comic; such a situation! I should like to have seen your face when the curtain was drawn, ifyouhad been the young man."
"I must beg you to understand that such a situation would beimpossibletome."
"I am to understand, then, that you would not 'emb——' that was what he said, wasn't it?—a woman if you loved her?"
"Not without permission, certainly," very stiffly.
"Oh, dear!" says Olga; "what a stupid man! Well, I shouldn't think you would do itoften. And so you wouldn't have liked to be that particular young man?"
This is a poser; Lord Rossmoyne parries the thrust.
"Wouldyouhave liked to be that young woman,—who, as it appears to me, wasn't at all particular?" he asks, in turn.
"That is no answer to my question," says Olga, who is angry with his last remark. "Are you afraid to say what you mean?"
"Afraid! No. To give publicity to a thing means always to vulgarize it: therefore, on consideration, I should not have cared to be that young man."
"Ah! I should have thought otherwise," says Olga, in an indescribable tone. "Well, there must be consolation for you in the thought that you never can be.—Mr. Ronayne," calling to Ulic lightly, "are you coming, or must I sit fingering my lyre in vain?"
Ulic, coming slowly up to her, stands beside her, as sheseats herself again upon the marble edge of the fountain, and runs her fingers gracefully over its strings.
His voice, a rich sweet tenor, breaks upon the air, blends with the beauty of the night, and sinks into it until all seems one great harmony. "'Tis I" is the song he has chosen, and a wonderful pathos that borders on despair enriches every note. He has forgotten every one but her, the pretty dainty creature who holds his heart in the hollow of her small hand. She must hear the melancholy that isdesolating and thereby perfecting his voice; but, if so, she gives no sign. Once only her fingers tremble, but she corrects herself almost before her error is committed, and never after gives way to even the faintest suspicion of feeling.
Through the glade the music swells and throbs. Mary Browne, drawing instinctively nearer, seems lost in its enchantment. Monica, looking up with eyes full of tears into Desmond's face, finds his eyes fixed on her, and, with a soft, childish desire for sympathy, slips her hand unseen into his. How gladly he takes and holds it need not here be told.
As he comes to the last verse, Ronayne's voice grows lower; it doesn't tremble, yet there is in it something suggestive of the idea that he is putting a terrible constraint upon himself:
"If regret some time assail theeFor the days when first we met,And thy weary spirit fail thee,And thine eyes grow dim and wet,Oh, 'tis I, love,At thy heart, love,Murmuring, 'How couldst thou forget?'"
"If regret some time assail theeFor the days when first we met,And thy weary spirit fail thee,And thine eyes grow dim and wet,Oh, 'tis I, love,At thy heart, love,Murmuring, 'How couldst thou forget?'"
The music lingers still for a moment, ebbs, and then dies away. Ronayne steps back, and all seems over. How Olga has proved so utterly unmoved by the passionate protest is exercising more minds than one, when suddenly she rises and with a swift movement bends over the fountain. Another moment, and she has dropped the guitar into the water. Some little silver ornament upon its neck flashes for an instant in the moonlight, and then it is gone.
"Oh, Olga!" says Hermia, making an involuntary step towards her.
"I shall never play on it again," says Olga, with a gesture that is almost impassioned. An instant, and it is all over,—her little burst of passion, the thought that led to it,—everything!
"I hate it!" she says, with a petulant laugh. "I am glad to be rid of it. Somebody made me a present of it whom I learned to detest afterwards. No, Owen, do not try to bring it to life again: let it lie down there out of sight where I may learn to forget it."
"As you will, madame," says Owen Kelly, who has been fruitlessly fishing for the drowned guitar.
"It is curious how hateful anything, however pretty, can become to us if we dislike the giver of it," says Mary Browne, pleasantly.
"Yes," says Hermia, quickly, glancing at her with a sudden gleam in her eyes,—of gratitude, perhaps. A moment ago there had been a certain awkwardness following on Olga's capricious action; now these few careless, kindly words from this ugly stranger have dispelled it. And is she so plain, after all? The fastidious Hermia, gazing at her intently, asks herself this question. Surely before that bright and generous gleam in her eyes her freckles sink into insignificance.
"I knew you would like her," says Mr. Kelly, at this moment, speaking low in Hermia's ear.
When a woman is startled she is generally angry. Mrs. Herrick is angry now, whether because of his words, or the fact that she did not know he was so close to her, let who will decide.
"You are very, very clever," she says, glancing at him from under drooping lids, and then turning away.
"So they all tell me," returns he, modestly.
Rossmoyne, crossing the brilliant moonlit path that divides him from the group round Hermia, seats himself beside her, thereby leaving Olga and Ulic Ronayne virtually alone.
"You will regret that guitar to-morrow," says Ronayne,—"at least not the thing itself (I can replace that), but——"
"I regret nothing," says Mrs. Bohun, carelessly,—"unless I regret that you have taken an absurdly ill-tempered action so much to heart. I am ill-tempered, you know."
"I don't," says Ronayne.
"So courteous a liar must needs obtain pardon. But let us forget everything but this lovely night. Was there ever so serene a sky? see how the stars shine and glimmer through the dark interstices of the blue-gray clouds!"
"They remind me of something,—of some words," says Ronayne, in a low voice. "They come to me now, I hardly know why, perhaps because of the night itself, and perhaps because—" he hesitates.
Olga is staring dreamily at the studded vault above her.
"About the stars?" she asks, without looking at him.
"Yes:—
'A poet loved a star,And to it whispered nightly,Being so fair, why art thou, love, so far,Or why so coldly shine who shin'st so brightly?'
'A poet loved a star,And to it whispered nightly,Being so fair, why art thou, love, so far,Or why so coldly shine who shin'st so brightly?'
The poet was presumptuous, it seems to me."
"Was he? I don't know. All things come to him who knows how to wait."
"Who's waiting?" says Kelly's voice from the other side of the fountain; "and for what?"
"ToujoursOwen," says Mrs. Bohun, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders. "Well, no one even in this life is altogether without a taste of purgatory: mine (this is a delicate compliment to you, Owen, so listen to it) might have been worse. Do you know I have sometimes thought——"
"She has really!" interrupts Mr. Kelly, turning with cheerful encouragement to the others. "You wouldn't think it to look at her, would you? but I know her intimately, and can vouch for the truth of her words. Go on, my dear Olga."
But "my dear Olga" has turned aside, and declines to take any notice of his remark beyond a faint grimace.
"She's very shy," says Mr. Kelly, in an explanatory aside, "andsoretiring. Can't bear to hear herself publicly praised, or feel herself the centre of attraction. Let us haste to change the subject." This with many becks, and nods, and wreathed smiles,meant to explain the delicacy of the feeling that prompts him to this course. "By the by, Desmond, doesn't this fairy-like spot, and the moonlight, and the pathos of the silent night, and everything, remind you forcibly of old O'Connor?"
"But I always heard——" begins Monica, in a voice of much amazement; then she stops confusedly and presently goes on again, but in a different key. "Was The O'Connor, then, æsthetic?" she says.
At this even Lord Rossmoyne, who was in the lowest depths of despair, gives way to open mirth.
"Well, no, not exactly," says Ulic Ronayne. "There was a fatal healthiness about his appearance that disagreed with that idea. But he certainly was fond of this little place; he put up the fountain himself, had it brought all the way from Florence for the purpose; and he had a trick of lying here onhis face and hands for hours together, grubbing for worms,—or studying the insect world I think he used to call it."
"I have always thought," says Mr. Kelly, in a tone of reflective sadness, "what an uncomfortable position that must be."
"What must be?"
"Lying on one's face and hands. What becomes of the rest of one? Does one keep one's heels in the air whilst doing it? To me it sounds awful! Yet only last week I read in the papers of a fellow who was found on a road on his face and hands, and the doctors said he must have been in that positionfor hours!Fancy—yournose, for instance, Rossmoyne, in the mud, and your heels in the air,for hours!"
Lord Rossmoyne, having vainly tried to imagine his dignified body in such a position, looks distinctly offended.
"No,nobodywould like it," says Kelly, pathetically, answering his disgusted look exactly as if it had been put into words. "There is a shameful frivolity about it not to be countenanced for a moment. Yet good and wise men have been said to do it. Fancy the Archbishop of Canterbury, now, balancing himself on his nose and his palms! Oh! itcan'tbe true!"
His voice by this time is positively piteous, and he looks earnestly around, as though longing for some one to support his disbelief.
"You are really excelling yourself to-night," says Mrs. Herrick, in a delicately disdainful tone.
"Am I? I am glad," humbly, "thatyouhave had an opportunity of seeing me at my poor best."
"I wonder," says Desmond, suddenly, "if, when old O'Connor revisits the earth at the witching hour, he comes in the attitude so graphically described by Kelly? In acrobat fashion, I mean."
At this Monica breaks into laughter so merry, so full of utterly childishabandonand enjoyment, that all the others perforce join in it.
"Oh! fancy a ghost standing on his head!" she says, when she can speak.
"I shouldn't fancy it at all," says Mr. Kelly, gloomily. "Iwon't. Far from it. And I should advise you, Miss Beresford, to treat with less frivolity a subject so fraught with terror,—especially at this time of night. If that 'grand old man' were to appear now," with a shuddering glance behind him, "whatwouldbecome of us all?"
"An unpleasant idea!" says Miss Browne,—"so unpleasant, indeed, that I think I should like to go for a little walk somewhere,—anywhere, away from the scene of the late Mr. O'Connor's nightly visitations."
"Come to the end of the shrubbery, then," says Desmond, "and look at the sea. It should be worth the trouble on such a night as this. Come you too, Olga."
"I should like it, but my head aches so," says Mrs. Bohun, plaintively. And, indeed, she is very pale. "It is either the moonlight which oppresses me, or—I don't know what. No! I shall go indoors, I think."
"Then I shall go with you," says Mrs. Herrick, regarding her with a certain anxiety. "But you," turning to Mary Browne, "must not miss a glimpse of the coast by moonlight. Mr. Kelly will show it to you."
She slips her arm through Olga's, and turns towards the house; Ulic Ronayne accompanies them; but Lord Rossmoyne and Owen Kelly move in the contrary direction with Miss Browne. Monica and Desmond have gone on before; and even when the others arrive at the point in the shrubbery from which a glimpse of the ocean can be distinctly seen, these last two people are not to be discovered anywhere.
Yet they are not so distant as they seem. Desmond has led Monica to a rather higher spot, where the desired scene can be more vividly beheld, and where too they can be—oh, blessed thought!—alone.
Through a belt of dark-green fir-trees, whose pale tips are touched with silver by the moon, can be seen the limitless ocean, lying in restless waiting in the bay below.
A sort of enforced tranquillity has fallen upon it,—a troubled calm,—belied by the hoarse, sullen roar that rises now and again from its depths, as when some larger death-wave breaks its bounds, and, rushing inland, rolls with angry violence up the beach. Soft white crests lie upon the great sea's bosom, tossing idly hither and thither, glinting and trembling beneath the moon's rays, as though reluctantly subdued by its cold influence.
Across the whole expanse of the water a bright path is flung, that has its birth in heaven, yet deigns to accept a resting-place on earth,—a transitory rest, for there in the far distance on the horizon, where the dull grays of sea and sky have mingled, it has joined them, and seems again to have laid hold of its earliest home.
The birds are asleep in their sea-bound nests; the windhas died away. There is nothing to break the exquisite stillness of the night, save the monotonous beating of the waves against the rocks, and the faint rippling murmur of a streamlet in the ash-grove.
The whole scene is so rich with a beauty mystical and idealistic that Monica draws instinctively nearer to Desmond, with that desire for sympathy common to the satisfied soul, and stirs her hand in his.
Here, perhaps, it will be as well to mention, once for all, that whenever I give you to understand that Desmond is alone with Monica you are also to understand, without the telling, that he has her hand in his. What pleasure there can be for two people in standing, or sitting, or driving, as the case may be, forhours, palm to palm (this is how the poetical one expresses it), I leave all true lovers to declare. I only know for certain that it is a trick common to every one of them, rich and poor, high and low. I suppose there is consolation in the touch,—a sensation of nearness. I know, indeed, one young woman who assured me her principal reason for marrying Fred in a hurry (Fred was her husband) lay in the fact that she feared if she didn't she would grow left-handed, as he was always in possession of the right during their engagement.
"Ah! you like it," says Desmond, looking down upon her tenderly,—alluding to the charming view spread out before them,—the dark firs, the floating moon, the tranquil stars, the illimitable ocean, "of Almightiness itself the immense and glorious mirror."
Monica makes no verbal answer, but a sigh of intensest satisfaction escapes her, and she turns up to his a lovely face full of youth and heaven and content. Her eyes are shining, her lips parted by a glad, tremulous smile. She is altogether so unconsciously sweet that it would be beyond the power of even a Sir Percivale to resist her.
"My heart of hearts!" says Desmond, in a low, impassioned tone.
Her smile changes. Without losing beauty, it loses something ethereal and gains a touch of earth. It is more pronounced; it is, in fact, amused.
"I wonder where you learned all your terms of endearment," she says, slowly, looking at him from under her curling lashes.
"I learned them when I saw you. They had their birth then and there."
An eloquent silence follows this earnest speech. Thesmile dies from Monica's lips, and a sudden thoughtfulness replaces it.
"You never called any one your 'heart of hearts' before, then?" she asks, somewhat wistfully.
"Never—never. You believe me?"
"Yes." Her lids drop. Some inward thought possesses her, and then—with a sudden accession of tenderness very rare with her—she lifts her head, and lays her soft, cool cheek fondly against his.
"My beloved!" says the young man, in a tone broken by emotion.
For a moment he does not take her in his arms; some fear lest she may change her mind and withdraw her expression of affection deters him; and when at last he does press her to his heart, it is gently and with a careful suppression of all vehemence.
Perhaps no man in all the world is so calculated to woo and win this girl as Desmond. Perhaps there is no woman so formed to gain and keep him as Monica.
Holding her now in a light but warm clasp, he knows he has his heaven in his arms; and she, though hardly yet awake to the full sweetness of "Love's young dream," understands at least the sense of perfect rest and glad content that overfills her when with him.
"What are you thinking of?" she says, presently.
"'Myn alderlevest ladye deare,'" quotes he, softly.
"And what of her?"
"'That to the deth myn herte is to her holde,'—yes, for ever and ever," says Desmond, solemnly.
"I am very glad of that," saysMonica, simply; and then she raises herself from his embrace and looks straight down to the sea again.
At this moment voices, not approaching but passing near them, reach their ears.
"They are going in," says Monica, hurriedly, and with a regret that is very grateful to him. "We must go too."
"Must we?" reluctantly. "Perhaps," brightening, "they are only going to try the effect higher up."
"No. They are crossing the gravel to the hall door."
"They are devoid of souls, to be able to quit so divine a view in such hot haste. Besides, it is absurdly early to think of going indoors yet. By Jove, though!" looking at his watch, "I'm wrong: it is well after eleven. Now, who would have thought it?"
"Are you sure you meaneleven?" with flattering incredulity.
"Only too sure.Hasn'tthe time gone by quickly? Well, I suppose I must take you in, which means candles and bed for you, and a dreary drive home for Kelly and me, and not a chance of seeing you alone again."
"This time last week you couldn't have seen me at all," says Miss Beresford.
"True. I am ungrateful. And altogether this has been such a delightful evening,—to me at least: were," doubtfully, "youhappy?"
"Very,veryhappy," with earnest, uplifted eyes.
"Darling love!—I am afraid I must give you up to Mrs. O'Connor now," he goes on, presently, when an ecstatic thought or two has had time to come and go. "But, before going, say good-night to me here."
"Good-night, Brian."
He has never attempted to kiss her since that first time (and last,so far) in the orchard; and even now, though her pretty head is pressed against him, and her face is dangerously close to his, he still refrains. He has given her his word and will not break it; but perhaps he cannot altogether repress the desire to expostulate with her on her cruelty, because he gives voice to the gentle protest that rises to his lips.
"That is very cold good-night," he says. "You would say quite as much as that to Kelly or any of the others."
"I shouldn't call Mr. Kelly by his Christian name."
"No; but you would, Ronayne."
"Well, I shan't again, if you don't like it."
"That has nothing at all to do with what I mean. I only think you might show me a little more favor than the rest."
"Good-night, then,dearBrian. Now, I certainly shouldn't dream of calling Mr. Ronayne dear Ulic."
"Of course not. I should hope not, indeed! But still——there is something else that you might do forme."
Miss Beresford draws herself a little—a verylittle—away from him, and, raising her head, bestows upon him a glance that is a charming combination of mischief and coquetry. A badly-suppressed smile is curving the corner of her delicate lips.
"What a long time it takes you tosayit!" she says, wickedly.
At this they both break into low, soft laughter,—deliciouslaughter!—that must not be overheard, and is suggestive of alittle secret existing between them, that no one else may share.
"That is an invitation," says Desmond, with decision. "I consider you have now restored to me that paltry promise I made to you the other day in the orchard. And here I distinctly decline ever to renew it again. No, there is no use in appealing to me: I am not to be either softened or coerced."
"Well," says Miss Beresford, "listen to me." She stands well back from him this time, and, catching up the tail of her white gown, throws it negligently over her arm. "If youmusthave—you know what!—at least you shall earn it. I will race you for it, but you must give me long odds, and then, if you catch me before I reach that laurel down there, you shall have it. Is that fair?"
Plainly, from her exultant look, she thinks she can win.
"A bargain!" says Desmond. "And, were you Atalanta herself, I feel I shall outrun you."
"Sopresumptuous! Take care. 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,' and you may trip."
"I may not, too."
"Well," moving cautiously away from him, "when I come to that branch there, and say one, two, three, you—will——Now!"
At this, before he is half prepared, she cries, "one, two, three," with scandalous haste, and rushes away from him down the moonlit path. Swift and straight as a deer she flies, but, alas! just as the goal is all but reached, she finds the race is not to her, and that she is a prisoner in two strong arms!
"Now, who was presumptuous?" says Desmond, gazing into her lovely face. Her head, with a touch of exhaustion about it, is thrown back against his chest; through her parted lips her breath is coming with a panting haste, born of excitement and her fruitless flight. He bends over her, lower, and lower still. She feels herself altogether in his power.
"As you are strong, be merciful," she whispers, faintly. A warm flood of crimson has dyed her cheeks; her smile has faded; she struggles slightly, and then all in one moment Desmond becomes aware that tears have sprung into her eyes.
Instantly he releases her.
"Darling, forgive me," he says, anxiously. "See how your heart is beating now, and all for nothing! Of course I shall let you off your bargain. What do you take me for? Do you think I should make you unhappy for all the world could offer?Take those tears out of your eyes this instant, or I shall be seriously angry with you."
Monica laughs, but in a rather nervous fashion, and lets her lover dry her eyes with his own handkerchief. Then she sits down with him upon a rustic seat close by, wishing to be quite mistress of herself again before encountering the glare of the drawing-room lamps and the still more searching light of her friends' eyes.
For a full minute not a word is spoken by either of them She is inwardly troubled; he is downcast. Presently she rises with a little restless movement.
"No, do not stir just yet," she says. "I only want to pick some of that syringa behind you, it is so sweet."
Disinclined for action of any sort, he obeys her. She slips away behind him, and he sits there waiting listlessly for her return, and thinking, somewhat sadly, how smalla wayhe has made with her, and that she is almost as shy with him now as on that day by the river when first they met.
And then something marvellous happens that puts all his theories and regrets and fears to flight forever. Two soft arms—surely the softest in this wide glad world—steal round his neck; a gold-brown head is laid against his; a whisper reaches him.
"You were very good to me aboutthat!" says somebody, tremulously; and then two warm childish lips are laid on his, and Monica is in his arms.
"I wonder what it was that frightened you?" says Desmond, in a tender whisper, drawing her down on his knees and enfolding her closely as though she were in form the child that verily at heart she still is. "Tell me."
"I don't know." She has twined her bare beautiful arms around him, and is rubbing her cheek softly up and down against his in a fresh access of shyness.
"I think you do, my dearest."
"It was only this; that when I found I couldn't get away from you, I was frightened. It was very foolish of me, but whenever I read those stories about prisoners of war, and people being confined in dungeons, and that, I always know that if I were made a captive I shoulddie."
"But surely your lover's arms cannot be counted a prison, my life!"
"Yes, if they held me when I wanted to get away."
"But," reproachfully, "would you want to get away?"
She hesitates, and, lifting one arm, runs her fingers coaxingly through the hair fashion has left him.
"I don't want to go away now, at all events," she temporizes sweetly. Then, a moment later, "But Imust, nevertheless. Come," nervously, "we have been here a long time, and Madam O'Connor will be angry with me; and besides," pityingly, "you have all that long drive home still before you."
"I forgot all about the time," says Desmond, truthfully. "You are right: we must go in. Good-night again, my own."
Without waiting for permission this time, he stoops and presses his lips to hers. An instant later he knows with a thrill of rapture that his kiss has been returned.
How Mary Browne makes confession, though not by creed a Romanist; and how those who receive it are far removed from being holy fathers!—Moreover, I would have you see there is more acting off the stage than on it.
How Mary Browne makes confession, though not by creed a Romanist; and how those who receive it are far removed from being holy fathers!—Moreover, I would have you see there is more acting off the stage than on it.
Monica's week atAghyohillbegis drawing to a close. The day has dawned that is to usher in at even the famous representation of "The School for Scandal," as given by Miss Fitzgerald, Captain Cobbett, etc.
The whole house is topsy-turvy, no room being sacred from the actors and actresses (save the mark!), and all the servants are at their wit's end. There have been men down from the Gayety Theatre, Dublin, who have seen about the stage, and there have been other men from the village of Rossmoyne to help in the decoration of the ballroom, and between these two different sets of men an incessant war has been raging for many days.
Now at last the house is comparatively quiet, and, as four o'clock strikes, Madam O'Connor finds herself in her own special den (the only spot that has not been disturbed), with a tea-equipage before her, and all her ladies-in-waiting round her.
These ladies, for the most part, are looking full of suppressed excitement, and are in excellent spirits and irreproachable tea-gowns. Mary Browne, who has developed into a general favorite, is making some laughing remark about Lord Rossmoyne, who, with all the other men, is absent.
"D'ye know what it is, Mary?" says Madam O'Connor, inher unchecked brogue; "you might do something else with Rossmoyne besides making game of him."
"What?" says Mary Browne.
"Marry him, to be sure. A young woman like you, with more money than you know what to do with, ought to have a protector. Faith, you needn't laugh, forit'sonly common sense I'm talking. Tenants, and the new laws, will play the mischief with your soft heart and your estate, if you don't get some one to look after them both."
"Well?" says Mary Browne.
"Well, there's Rossmoyne, as I said before, actually going a begging for a wife. Why not take him?"
"I don't care about beggars," says Miss Browne, with a slight smile. "I am not one of those who think them picturesque."
"He isn't a beggar in any other sense than the one I have mentioned. He is a very good match. Think of it, now."
"I am thinking. Indeed, ever since my first day here I been thinking how deeply attached he is to Mrs. Bohun. Forgive me, Mrs. Bohun."
Olga laughs lightly. There is something about this plain girl that repels the idea of offence.
"What on earth put that idea into your head?" says her hostess, opening her eyes, who talks too much both in season and out of it to be able to see all the by-play going on around her. "You aren't setting your cap at him, are you, Olga my dear?"
"Indeed, no," says Olga, still laughing. "How could so absurd a notion have got intoanybody's head?"
"How, indeed?" says Monica, gayly.
"There's Owen Kelly, then; though he isn't as well off as Rossmoyne, still he will be worth looking after by and by, when the old man drops off. He's as good hearted a fellow as ever lived, when you know what he's at,—which isn't often, to do him justice. It struck me he was very civil to you last night."
"He was," says Miss Browne, whose merriment is on the increase. "But I never met any one who wasn't civil to me: so I found him commonplace enough. Ah! if he had only been uncivil, now!"
"Well, there he is, at all events," says Madam O'Connor, sententiously.
"I hope he's comfortable," says Miss Browne, kindly, "I shan't try to make him less so, at least. Why don't yourecommend Mr. Desmond or Mr. Ronayne to my notice?"with a mischievous glance at Monica and Olga Bohun.
"I'm afraid they are done for," says Madam, laughing now herself. "And I only hope that handsome boy Ronayne isn't laying up sorrow for himself and living in a fool's paradise. Indeed, Olga, pretty as you are, I'll be very angry with you if I hear you have been playing fast and loose with him."
The old lady shakes her head grimly at Mrs. Bohun, who pretends to be crushed beneath her glance.
"To prevent you offering me any more suitors," says Mary Browne, steadily, but with a rising blush, "I may as well tell you that I am engaged to be married."
"Good gracious, my dear! then why didn't you say so before?" says Madam, sitting bolt upright and letting herpince-nezfall unheeded into her lap.
"I really don't know; but I daresay because you took it for granted I wasn't."
"Mary," says Mrs. Herrick, speaking for the first time, and for the first time, too, calling Miss Browne by her Christian name, "tell us all about it."
"Yes,do," says Monica, and all the women draw their chairs instinctively a degree closer to the heroine of the hour, and betray in her a warm interest. After all, what can equal a really good love-affair?
"Go on, my dear," says MadamO'Connor, who is always full of life where romance is concerned. "I hope it is a good marriage."
"The best in the world, for me," says Mary Browne, simply, "though he hasn't a penny in the world but what he earns."
As she makes this awful confession, she isn't in the least confused, but smiles brightly.
"Well, Mary, I must say I wouldn't have believed it of you," says Madam.
"I would," says Monica, hastily laying her hand on one of Mary's. "It is just like her. After all, what has money got to do with it? Is henice, Mary?"
"So nice!" says Mary, who seems quite glad to talk about him, "and as ugly as myself," with a little enjoyable laugh, "so we can't call each other bad names; and his name is Peter, which of course will be considered another drawback, though I like the name myself. And we are very fond of each other—I have no doubt about that: and that is all, I think."
"No, it is not all," says Madam O'Connor, severely. "May I ask when you met this young man?"
"I must take the sting out of your tone at once, Gertrude," says her cousin, pleasantly, "by telling you that we were engaged longbeforepoor Richard died." (Richard was the scampish brother by whose death she inherited all.)
"Then why didn't you marry him?" says Madam.
"I was going to,—in fact, we were going to run away," says Miss Browne, with intense enjoyment at the now remote thought,—"doesn't it sound absurd?—when—when the news about Dick reached us, and then I could not bring myself to leave my father, no matter how unpleasant my home be."
"What is he?" asks Olga, with a friendly desire to know.
"A doctor. In rather good practice, too, in Dublin. He is very clever," says Miss Browne, telling her story so genially, so comfortably, that all their hearts go out to her, and Madam O'Connor grows lost in a revery about what will be the handsomest and most suitable thing to give "Peter" as a wedding-present. As she cannot get beyond a case of dissecting-knives, this revery is short.
"Perhaps if you saw some one else you might change your mind," she says, a new thought entering her head (of course there would be a difficulty about offering dissecting-knives to a barrister or quiet country gentleman).
"I have had five proposals this year already," says Miss Browne, quietly, "but, if I could be a princess by doing so, I would not give up Peter."
"Mary Browne, come here and give me a kiss," says Madam O'Connor, with tears in her eyes. "You are the best girl I know, and I always said it. I only hope your Peter knows the extent of his luck."
Miss Browne having to leave the room some few minutes later Olga raises herself from the lounging position she has been in, with her hands clasped behind her head, and says, slowly,—
"I don't think she is so plain, after all."
"Neither do I," says Monica, eagerly, "there is something so sweet about her expression."
"I am perfectly certain that man Peter is awfully in love with her," says Mrs. Herrick solemnly, "and that without theslightestthought of her money."
"What would he think of her money for?" says Madam O'Connor, testily, who had firmly believed him a fortune-hunter only two minutes ago. "Isn't she a jewel in herself?"
"By the bye, where is our Bella all this time?" says Olga,suddenly. "It now occurs to me that of course we have been missing her all this time."
"I know," says Monica, mysteriously: "she isasleep,—gettingherself up for her Lady Teazle. I was running along the corridor, outside her room, half an hour ago, when her mother came out on tiptoe and implored me to go gently, lest I should wake her."
"Gentle dove," says Mrs. Herrick.
"I shall go and dance thecan-canup and down that corridor this moment," says Mrs. Bohun, rising to her feet with fell determination in her eye.
"I think you had all better go to your rooms and get ready for dinner. It is painfully early to-night," says Madam, "on account of all this nonsense of Olga's. But no dressing mind, as I have told the men to come as they are. There will be plenty of that by and by."
One by one they all dwindle away at the word of command, Olga, true to her word, making such a clatter as she passes Miss Fitzgerald's door as might readily be classed with those noises popularly supposed to be able to wake the silent dead. Whether it wakes Miss Fitzgerald is unknown to all save her mother and her maid.
It makes Monica laugh, however who, sitting in her own room, is gazing with dreamy delight at the prettygownMiss Priscilla has ordered from Mrs. Sim's for her all the way from Dublin, and which has been spread upon her bed by Olga's maid, Mrs. Bohun having insisted on sharing that delightfulyoung personwith her ever since her first night at Aghyohillbeg.
Yet Aunt Priscilla will not be here to-night to see her favorite niece dressed in her charming present.
At the last moment, not two hours agone, had come a letter from Moyne to Madame O'Connor telling how Miss Penelope had been seized by a bad neuralgic headache and was in such pain that Miss Priscilla could not find it in her heart to leave her. Kit, escorted by Terence, would arrive, however, in time for the opening act; and it would be impossible to say how disappointed the two old ladies were (which indeed was the strict truth), and they hoped all would be successful, etc., etc.
With a remorseful pang, Monica acknowledges to herself now that she had felt a secret gladness when first the news had been retailed to her by Madame O'Connor. A sense of being under an obligation to that dire neuralgic headache, is oppressing her. It is wicked of her, and most cruel, but the secret exultation cannot be denied.
And see how the case stands. Poor Aunt Penelope in vile suffering, Aunt Priscilla enduring bitter disappointment,—for she had, as Monica well knew, set her heart on witnessing these theatricals,—and Monica herself actually glad and light at heartbecauseof the misfortunes that have befallen them. Alas! how fiendish it all sounds!
And again, to add to the iniquity of it, for how slight a cause has she welcomed the discomfiture of her best friends! For a few dances with their enemy, a freedom for happy smiles and unrestrained glances,—allto be made over to the enemy. For how, with Miss Priscilla's reproachful angry eyes upon her, could she have waltzed or smiled or talked with a Desmond?
And what is to be the end of it all? A vague feeling of terror compasses her round about as she dwells on her forbidden lover. Will she have to give him up at the last?—it must be either him or Aunt Priscilla; and she owes so much to Aunt Priscilla; while to him—oh, no! she owes him nothing; of course he is only—only—and yet——
A bell sounds in the distance; she starts and glances at the tiny clock upon her chimney-piece. Yes, it is almost six, and dinner will be ready in ten minutes. And afterwards comes "The School for Scandal," and after that the tableaux, and after that again dancing,—delights threefold for happy eighteen. Her spirits rise; her fears fall; self-contempt, remorse, regret, all sink into insignificance, and with a beating heart she coils afresh her tinted hair, and twines some foreign beads about her slender throat to make herself a shade more lovable in the eyes of the man she must not encourage, and whose very existence she has been forbidden to acknowledge.
The curtain has risen, has fallen and risen again, and now has descended for the last time. A flutter—is it rapture or relief?—trembles through the audience. "The School for Scandal" has come to a timely end!
I selfishly forbear from giving my readers a lengthened account of it, as they (unless any of the Aghyohillbeg party takes up this book) havemercy—that is, unfortunately, been debarred by fate from ever witnessing a performance such as this, that certainly, without servile flattery, may be termed unique. Words (that is,mywords) would fail to give an adequate idea of it, and so from very modesty I hold my pen.
"It was marvellous," says Sir Mark Gore, who is paying a flying visit to Lord Rossmoyne. He says this with the profoundestsolemnity, and perhaps a little melancholy. His expression is decidedly pensive.
"It was indeed wonderful," says the old rector, in perfect good faith.
And wonderful it was indeed. Anything so truly remarkable, I may safely declare, was never seen in this or any other generation.
Miss Fitzgerald's Lady Teazle left nothing to be desired, save perhaps an earlier fall of the curtain, while Captain Cobbett's Joseph Surface was beyond praise. This is the strict truth. He was indeed the more happy in his representation of the character in that he gave his audience a Joseph they never had seen and never would see again on any stage, unless Captain Cobbett could kindly be induced by them to try it on some other occasion.
A few ignorant people, indeed, who plainly found such a splendid rendering of the part too much for their intellectual capacity, were seized with a laughter profane, if smothered, whenever the talented captain made his appearance, giving the rest of the company (who could see them shaking behind their fans) to understand that they at least were "not for Joe,"—that is, Captain Cobbett's Joe. But the majority very properly took no notice of these Philistines, and indeed rebuked them by maintaining an undisturbed gravity to the very end.
Sir Peter (Mr. Ryde) was most sumptuously arrayed. Nothing could exceed the magnificence of his attire. Upon an amateur stage, startling habiliments copied from a remote period are always attractive, and Mr. Ryde did all he knew in this line, giving even to the ordinary Sir Peter of our old-fashioned knowledge certain garments in vogue quite a century before he could possibly have been born. This gave a charming wildness to his character, a devil-may-care sort of an air, that exactly suited his gay and festive mood. After all, why should Sir Peter be old and heavy? why indeed?
The effect was altogether charming. That there were a few disagreeable people who said they would have liked to know what he wasat(sucha phrase, you know!), what hemeant, in fact, and who declared that, as a mere simple matter of choice, they liked to hear a word now and again from an actor, goes without telling. There are troublesome people in every grade of society,—gnats thatwillsting. Silence is golden, as all the world knows; and Mr. Ryde is of it: so of course he forgot his part whenever he could, and left out all the rest!
This he did with a systematic carefulness very praiseworthy in so young a man.
On the whole, therefore, you will see that the affair was an unprecedented success; and if some did go away puzzled as to whether it was a burlesque or a tragedy, nobody was to blame for their obtuseness. There certainly are scenes in this admirable comedy not provocative of laughter; but such was the bad taste of Madam O'Connor that she joined in with the Philistines mentioned farther back, and laughed straight through the piece from start to finish, until the tears ran down her cheeks.
She said afterwards she was hysterical, and Olga Bohun, who was quite as bad as she, said, "no wonder."
Now, however, it is all over, and the actors and actresses have disappeared, to make way for the gauze, the electric light, and the tableaux; whilst the audience is making itself happy with iced champagne and conversation, kind and otherwise (very much otherwise), about the late performance.
Olga Bohun, who is looking all that the heart of man can desire in white lace and lilies, leaving the impromptu theatre, goes in search of Hermia, who, with Owen Kelly, is to appear in the opening tableau. She makes her way to the temporary green-room, an inner hall, hidden from the outer world by means of a hanging velvet curtain, and with a staircase at the lower end that leads to some of the upper corridors. Here she finds Ulic Ronayne, Miss Browne, Monica, Desmond, and Kelly.
She has barely time to say something trivial to Miss Browne, when a pale light appearing at the top of the staircase attracts the attention of all below. Instinctively they raise their eyes towards it, and see a tall figure clad in white descending the stairs slowly and with a strange sweet gravity. Is it an angel come to visit them, or Hermia Herrick?
It resolves itself into Hermia at last, but a beautiful Hermia,—a lovely apparition,—a woman indeed still, but "with something of an angel-light" playing in her dark eyes and round her dusky head. Always a distinguished-looking woman, if too cold for warmer praise, she is now at least looking supremely beautiful.
She is dressed as Galatea, in a clinging garment of the severest Greek style, with no jewels upon her neck, and with her exquisite arms bare to the shoulder. One naked sandalled foot can be seen as she comes leisurely to them step by step. She is holding a low Etruscan lamp in one hand upon a levelwith her head, and there is just the faintest suspicion of a smile about her usually irresponsive lips.
No one speaks until her feet touch the hall, when a little murmur, indistinct, yet distinctly admiring, arises to greet her.
"I hope I don't look foolish," she says, with as much nervousness in her tone as can possibly be expected from her.
"Oh, Hermia, you are looking too lovely," says Olga, with a burst of genuine enthusiasm. "Is she not, Owen?"
But Mr. Kelly makes no reply.
A slight tinge of color deepens Mrs. Herrick's complexion as she turns to him.
"Poor Mr. Kelly!" she says, the amused flicker of a smile flitting over her face, which has now grown pale again. "What a situation! There! don't sully your conscience: I will let you off your lie. That is where an old friend comes in so useful, you see."
"At all events, I don't see where the lie would come in. But, as you do, of course I shall say nothing," says Kelly.
"What a Pygmalion!" says Olga, in high disgust. "And what a speech! Contemptible! I don't believe any Galatea would come to life beneathyourtouch. It would be cold as the marble itself!"
So saying, she moves away to where Monica is standing, looking quite the sweetest thing in the world, as