Then did the blood awaken in the veinsOf the young maiden wandering in the fields.Luteplayer's Song.
Then did the blood awaken in the veinsOf the young maiden wandering in the fields.Luteplayer's Song.
Onward floweth the water, onward through meadows broad,"How happy," the meadows say, "art thou to be rippling onward.""And my heart is beating, beating beneath my girdle here;""O Heart," the girdle saith, "how happy art thou that thou beatest."Luteplayer's Song.
Onward floweth the water, onward through meadows broad,"How happy," the meadows say, "art thou to be rippling onward.""And my heart is beating, beating beneath my girdle here;""O Heart," the girdle saith, "how happy art thou that thou beatest."Luteplayer's Song.
Dublin,October 15th, 1814.—This day do I, Molly de Savenaye, begin my diary.
Madeleine writes to me from Bath that she has purchased a very fine book, in which she intends to set forth each evening all that has happened her since the morning; she advises me to do so too. She says that sincereal lifehas begun for us; life, of which every succeeding day is not, as in the convent, the repetition of the previous day, but brings some new discovery, pleasure, or pain, we ought to write down and preserve their remembrance.
It will be so interesting for us to read when a new life once more begins for us, and we aremarried. Besides it is thefashion, and all the young ladies she knows do it. And she has, she says, already plenty to write down. Now Ishouldlike to know what about.
When ought one to start such a record? Surely not on a day like this.
"Whydemme" (as Mrs. Hambledon's nephew says), "what the deyvilhave I got to say?"
Item:I went out shopping this morning with Mrs. Hambledon, and, bearing Madeleine's advice in mind, purchased at Kelly's, in Sackville Street, an album book, bound in green morocco, with clasp and lock, which Mr. Kelly protests is quite secure.
Item:We met Captain Segrave of the Royal Dragoons (who was so attentive to me at Lady Rigtoun's rout, two days ago). He looked very well on his charger, but how conceited! When he saw me, he rolled his eyes andgrew quite red; and then he stuck his spurs into his horse, that we might admire how he could sit it; which he did, indeed, to perfection.
Mrs. Hambledon looked vastly knowing, and I laughed. If ever I try to fancy myself married to such a man I cannot help laughing.
This, however, is not diary.—Item:We returned home because it began to rain, and to pass the time, here am I at my book.
But isthisthe sort of thing that will be of interest to read hereafter? I have begun too late; I should have written in those days when I saw the dull walls of our convent prison for the last time. It seems so far back now (though, by the calendar it is hardly six months), that I cannot quite recall how it felt to live in prison. And yet it was not unhappy, and there was no horror in the thought we both had sometimes then, that we should pass and end our lives in the cage. It did not strike us as hard. It seemed, indeed, in the nature of things. But the bare thought of returning to that existence now, to resume the placid daily task, to fold up again like a plant that has once expanded to sun and breeze, to have never a change of scene, of impression, to look forward to nothing butsubmission, sleep, anddeath; oh, it makes me turn cold all over!
And yet there are women who, of their own will, give up thefreedom of the worldto enter a conventafterthey have tasted life! Oh, I would rather be the poorest, the ugliest peasant hag, toiling for daily bread, than one of these cold cloistered souls, so that the free air of heaven, be it with the winds or the rain, might beat upon me, so that I might live and loveas I like, do rightas I like; ay, and do wrongifI liked, with the free will which is myown.
We were told that the outer world, with all its sorrows and trials, and dangers—how I remember the Reverend Mother's words and face, and how they impressed me then, and how I should laugh at them,now!—that the world was but a valley of tears. We were warned that all that awaited us, if we left the fold, wasmisery; that the joys of this world werebitterto the taste, its pleasureshollow, and its griefslasting.
We believed it. And yet, when the choice was actuallyours to make, we chose all we had been taught to dread and despise. Why? I wonder. For the same reason as Eve ate the apple, I suppose. I would, if I had been Eve. I almost wish I could go back now, for a day, to the cool white rooms, to see the nuns flitting about like black and white ghosts, with only a jingle of beads to warn one of their coming, see the blue sky through the great bare windows, and the shadows of the trees lengthening on the cold flagged floors, hear the bells going ding-dong, ding-dong, and the murmur of the sea in the distance, and the drone of the school, and the drone of the chapel, to go back, and feel once more the dull sort of content, the calmness, the rest!
But no, no! I should be trembling all the while lest the blessed doors leading back to thathorribleworld should never open to me again.
The sorrows and trials of the world! I suppose the Reverend Mother really meant it; and if I had gone on living there till my face was wrinkled like hers, poor woman, I might have thought so too, in the end, and talked the same nonsense.
Was it really I that endured such a life for seventeen years? O God! I wonder that the sight of the swallows coming and going, the sound of the free waves, did not drive me mad. Twist as I will my memory, I cannot recallthatMolly of six months ago, whose hours and days passed and dropped all alike, all lifeless, just like the slow tac, tac, tac of our great horloge in the Refectory, and were to go on as slow and as alike, for ever and ever, till she was old, dried, wrinkled, and then died. The real Molly de Savenaye's life began on the April morning when that dear old turbaned fairy godmother of ours carried us, poor little Cinderellas, away in her coach. Well do I remember my birthday.
I have read since in one of those musty books of Bunratty, thatmothsandbutterfliescome to life by shaking themselves out, one fine day, from a dull-looking, shapeless, ugly thing they call agrub, in which they have been buried for a long time. They unfold their wings and fly out in the sunshine, and flit from flower to flower, and they look beautiful and happy—the world, the wicked world, is open to them.
There were pictures in the book; the ugly grub below,dreary and brown, and the lovelybutterflyin all its colours above. I showed them to Madeleine, and said: "Look, Madeleine, as we were, and as we are."
And she said: "Yes, those brown gowns they made us wear were ugly; but I should not like to put on anything so bright as red and yellow. Would you?"
That is the worst of Madeleine; she never realises in the least what I mean. And shedoeslove her clothes; that is the difference between her and me, she loves fine things because they are fine and dainty and all that—I like them because they makemefine.
And yet, how she did weep when she left the convent. Madeleine would have made a good nun after all; she does so hate anything ugly or coarse. She grows quite white if she hears people fighting; if there is a "row" or a "shindy," as they say here. Whereas Tanty and I think it all the fun in the world, and would enjoy joining in the fray ourselves, I believe, if we dared. I knowIshould; it sets my blood tingling. But Madeleine is a real princess, a sort of Ermine; and yet she enjoys her new life, too, the beauty of it, the refinement, being waited upon and delicately fed and clothed. But although she has ceased to weep for the convent, if it had not been for me she would be there still. The only thing, I believe, that could make me weep now would be to find one fine morning that this had only been a dream, and that I was once morethe grub! To find that I could not open my window and look into the wide, wide world over to the long, green hills in the distance, and know that I could wander or gallop up to them, as I did at Bunratty, and see for myselfwhat lies beyond—surely that was a taste of heaven that day when Tanty Rose first allowed me to mount her old pony, and I flew over the turf with the wind whistling in my ears—to find that I could not go out when I pleased and hear new voices and see new faces, and men and women wholive each their own life, and not thesamelife as mine.
When I think of what I am now, and what I might have remained, I breathe deep and feel like singing; I stretch my arms out and feel like flying.
Our aunt told us she thought Bunratty would be dull for us, and so it was in comparison with this place. Perhapsthisis dull in comparison with whatmaycome.For good Tanty, as she likes us to call her, is intent on doing great things for us.
"Je vous marierai," she tells us in her funny old French, "Je vous marierai bien, mes filles, si vous êtes sages," and she winks both eyes.
Marriage!That, it is quite evident, is the goal of every properly constituted young female; and every respectable person who has the care of said young female is consequently bent upon her reaching that goal.
So marriage isanothergood thing to look forward to. Andlove, that love all the verses, all the books one reads are so full of;thatwill come to us.
They say thatlove is life. Well, all I want is to live. But with a grey past such as we have had, the present is good enough to ponder upon. We now can lie abed if we have sweet dreams and pursue them waking, and be lazy, yet not be troubled with the self-indulgence as with an enormity; or we can rise and breathe the sunshine at our own time. We can be frivolous, and yet meet with smiles in response, dress our hair and persons, and be pleased with ourselves, and with being admired or envied, yet not be told horrid things about death and corruption and skeletons. And, above all—oh, aboveall, we can think of the future as different from the past, aschanging, be it even for the worse; as unknown and fascinating, not as a repetition, until death, of the same dreary round.
In Mrs. Hambledon's parlour here are huge glasses at either end; whenever you look into them you see a never-ending chain of rooms with yourself standing in the middle, vanishing in the distance, every one the same, with the same person in the middle, only a little smaller, a little more insignificant, a little darker, till it all becomesnothing. It always reminds me of life's prospects in the convent.
I dislike that room. When I told Mrs. Hambledon the reason why, she laughed, and promised me that, with my looks and disposition, my life would be eventful enough. I have every mind that it shall.
October 18th.—Yesterday, I woke up in an amazing state of happiness, though for no particular reason that I can think of. It could not be simply because we were to goout for a visit to the country and see new people and places, for I have already learned to find that most new people are cut out on the same pattern as those one already knows. It must have been rather because I awoke under the impression of one of my lovely dreams—such dreams as I have only had since I left mygrubstate; dreams of space, air, long, long views of beautiful scenery, always changing, always wider, such as swallows flying between sky and earth might see, under an exquisite and brilliant light, till for very joy I wake up, my cheeks covered with tears.
This time, I was sitting on the prow of some vessel with lofty white sails, and it was cutting through the water, blue as the sky, with wreaths of snow-like foam, towards some unknown shores, ever faster and faster, and I was singing to some one next to me on the prow—some one I did not know, but who felt with me—singing a song so perfect, so sweet (though it had no human words) that I thoughtit explained all: the blue of the heaven, the freshness of the breeze, the fragrance of the earth, and why we were so eagerly pressing onwards. I thought the melody was such that when once heard it could never be forgotten. When I woke it still rang in my ears, but now I can no more recall it. How is it we never know such delight in waking hours? Is that some of the joy we are to feel in Heaven, the music we are to hear? And yet it can be heard in this life if one only knew where to go and listen. And this life is beautiful which lies in front of us, though they would speak of it as a sorrowful span not to be reckoned. It is good to be young and think of the life still to come. Every moment is precious for its enjoyment, and yet sometimes I find that one only knows of a pleasure when it is just gone. One ought to try and be more awake at each hour to the happiness it may bring. I shall try, and you, my diary, shall help me.
This is reallynodiary-keeping. It is not a bit like those one reads in books. It ought to tell of other people and the events of each day. But other people are really very uninteresting; as for events, well, so far, they are uninteresting too; it is only what they cause to spring up in our hearts that is worth thinking upon; and that is so difficult to put in words that mostly I spend my time merely pondering and not writing.
Last night Mrs. Hambledon took me to theplay. It was for the first time in my life, and I was full of curiosity. It was a long drama, pretty enough and sometimes very exciting. But I could see that though the actress was very handsome and mostly so unhappy as to draw tears from the spectators, there were people, especially some gentlemen, who were more interested in looking at the box where I sat with Mrs. Hambledon. Indeed, I could not pretend, when I found myself before my glass that night, that I was not amazingly prettier than that Mrs. Colebrook, about whose beauty the whole town goes mad.
When I recalled the hero's ravings about his Matilda's eyes and cheeks, and her foot and her sylph-like waist, and her raven hair, I wondered whatthatyoung man would say of me if he were my lover and I his persecuted mistress. The Matilda was a pleasing person enough; but if I take her point by point, it would be absurd to speak of her charms in the same breath with mine. Oh, my dear Molly, how beautiful I thought you last night! How happy I should be, were I a dashing young lover and eyes likeyourssmiled on me. I never before thought myself prettier than Madeleine, but now I do.
Lovers, love, mistress, bride; they talked of nothing else in the play. And it was all ecstasy in their words, and nothing butmiseryin fact (just as the Reverend Mother would have had it).
The young man who played the hero was a very fine fellow; and yet when I conceivehimmaking love to me as he did last night to Mrs. Colebrook, the notion seems reallytooludicrous!
What sort of man then is it I would allow to love me? I do not mind the thought of lovers sighing and burning for me (as some do now indeed, or pretend to) I like to feel that I can crush them with a frown and revive them with a smile; I like to see them fighting for my favour. But to give a man the right to love me, the right to my smiles, theright to me! Indeed, I have yet seennonewho could make me bear the thought.
And yet I think that I could love, and I know that the man that I am to love must be living somewhere till fate brings him to me. He does not think of me. He does not know of me. And neither of us, I suppose, will taste life as life is till the day when we meet.
Camden Place, Bath,November 1st.—Bath at last, which, must please poor Mrs. Hambledon exceedingly, for she certainly didnotenjoy the transit. I cannot conceive how people can allow themselves to be so utterly distraught by illness. I feel I can never have any respect for her again; she moaned and lamented in such cowardly fashion, was so peevish all the time on board the vessel, and looked so very begrimed and untidy andplainwhen she was carried out on Bristol quay. The captain called itdirtyweather, but I thought itlovely, and I don't think I ever enjoyed myself more—except when Captain Segrave's Black Douglas ran away with me in Phœnix Park.
It was beautiful to see our brave boat plough the sea and quiver with anger, as if it were a living thing, when it was checked by some great green wave, then gather itself again under the wind and dash on to the fight, until it conquered. And when we came into the river and the sun shone once more it glided on swiftly, though looking just a little tired for a while until its decks and sails were dry and clean again, and I thought it was just like a bird that has shaken and plumed itself. I was sorry to leave it. The captain and the mate and the sailors, who had wrapped me up in their great, stiff tarpaulin coats and placed me in a safe corner where I could sit out and look, were also sorry that I should go.
But it was good to be with Madeleine again and Tanty Donoghue, who always has such a kind smile on her old wrinkled face when she looks at me.
Madeleine was astonished when I told her I had loved the storm at sea and when I mimicked poor Mrs. Hambledon. She says she also thought she was dying, so ill was she on her crossing, and that she was quite a week before she got over the impression.
It seems odd to think that we are sisters, and twin sisters too; in so many things she is different from me. She has changed in manner since I left her. She seems so absorbed in some great thought that all her words and smiles have little meaning in them. I told her I had tried to keep my diary, but had not done much work, and when I asked to see hers (for a model) Madeleine blushed, and said I should see it this day year.
Madeleine is in love; that is the only way I can accountfor that blush. I fear she is a sly puss, but there is such a bustle around us, and so much to do and see, I have no time to make her confess. So I said I would keep mine from her for that period also.
It seems a long span to look ahead. What a number of things will happen before this day year!
Bath,November 3rd.—Bath is delightful! I have only been here two days, and already I am what Tanty, in her old-fashioned way, callsthe belle. Already there are a dozen sparks who declare that my eyes haveshot deathto them. This afternoon comes my Lord of Manningham, nicknamedKing of Bath, to "drink a dish of tea," as he has it, with his "dear old friend Miss O'Donoghue."
Tanty has been here three weeks, and he has only just discovered her existence, and remembered their tender friendship. Of course, I know very well what has really brought him. He is Lord Dereham's grandfather on the mother's side, and Lord Dereham, who is the son of the Duke of Wells, is "the catch," as Mrs. Hambledon vows, of the fashionable world this year. And Lord Dereham has seen me twice, andis in love with me.
But as Lord Dereham is more like a little white rat than a man, and swears more than he converses—which would be very shocking if it were not for his lisp, which makes it very funny—needless to say, my diary dear, your Molly is not in love with him—He has no chance.
And so Lord Manningham comes to tea, and Tanty orders me to remain and see her "old friend" instead of going to ride with the widow Hambledon. The widow Hambledon and I are everywhere together, and she knows all the most entertaining people in Bath, whereas Madeleine, whom I have hardly seen at all except at night, when I am so dead tired that I go to sleep as soon as my head touches the pillow (I vow Tanty's manner of speech is catching), Miss Madeleine keeps to her own select circle, and turns up her haughty little nose atmyfriends.
So now Madeleine is punished, for Tanty and I have had the honour of receiving theKing of Bath, and I have been vouchsafed the stamp of his august approval.
"My dear Miss O'Donoghue," he cried, as I curtsied, "do my senses deceive me, or do I not once more beholdMurthering Moll?"
"I thought you could not fail to notice the likeness; my niece is, indeed, a complete O'Donoghue," says Tanty, amazingly pleased.
"Likeness, ma'am," cried the old wretch, bowing again, and scattering his snuff all over the place, while I sweep him another splendid curtsey, "likeness, ma'am, why this is no feeble copy, no humble imitation, 'tisMurdering Moll herself, and glad I am to see her again." And then he catches me under the chin, and peers into my face with his dim, wicked old eyes. "And so you are Murdering Moll's daughter," says he, chuckling to himself. "Ay, she and I were very good friends, my pretty child, very good friends, and that not so long ago, either. Ay,Mater pulchra, filia pulchrior."
"But I happen to be her grand-daughter, please my lord," said I, and then I ran to fetch him a chair (for I was dreadfully afraid he was going to kiss me). But though no one has ever accused me of speaking too modestly to be heard, my lord had a sudden fit of deafness, and I saw Tanty give me a little frown, while the old thing—he must be much older than Tanty even—tottered into a chair, and went on mumbling.
"I was only a boy in those days, my dear, only a boy, as your good aunt will tell you. I can remember how the bells rang the three beautiful Irish sisters into Bath, and I and the other dandies stood to watch them drive by. The bells rang in thebellesin those days, my dear, he, he, he! only we used to call them 'toasts' then, and your mother was the most beautiful of 'the three Graces'—we christened them 'the three Graces'—and by gad she led us all a pretty dance!"
"Ah, my lord," says Tanty, and I could see her old eyes gleam though her tone was so pious, "I fear we were three wild Irish girls indeed!"
Lord Manningham was too busy ogling me to attend to her.
"Your mother was just such another as you, and she had just such a pair of dimples," said he.
"You mean my grandmother," shouted I in his ear, just for fun, though Tanty looked as if she were on pins and needles. But he only pinched my cheek again and went on:
"Before she had been here a fortnight all the bucks in thetown were at her feet. And so was I, so was I. Only, by gad, I was too young, you know, as Miss O'Donoghue here will tell you. But she liked me; she used to call me her 'little manny.' I declare I might have married her, only there were family reasons, and I was such a lad, you know. And then Jack Waterpark, some of us thought she would have hadhimin the end—being an Irishman, and a rich man, and a marquis to boot—he gave her the name ofMurthering Moll, because of her killing eyes, young lady—he! he! he!—and there was Ned Cuffe ready to hang himself for her, and Jim Denham, and old Beau Vernon, ay, and a score of others. And then one night at the Assembly Rooms, after the dancing was over and we gay fellows were all together, up gets Waterpark, he was a little tipsy, my dear, and by gad I can hear him speak now, with that brogue of his. 'Boys,' he says, 'it's no use your trying for her any more, for by GodI've won her.' And out of his breast-pocket he pulls a little knot of blue ribbon. Your mother, my dear, had worn a very fine gown that evening, with little knots of blue ribbon all over the bodice of it. The words were not out of his mouth when Ned Cuffe starts to his feet as white as a sheet: 'It's a damned lie,' he cries, and out of his pockethepulls another little knot. 'She gave it to me with her own hands,' he cried and glares round at us all. And then Vernon bursts out laughing and flourishes a third little bow in our eyes, and I had one too, I need not tell you, and so had all the rest, all save a French fellow—I forget his name—and it was he she had danced with the most of all. Ah, Miss O'Donoghue, how the little jade's eyes sparkle! I warrant you have never told her the story for fear she would want to copy her mother in other ways besides looks—Hey? Well, my pretty, give me your little hand, and then I shall go on—pretty little hand, um—um—um!" and then he kissed my hand, the horrid, snuffy thing! but I allowed it, for I did so want to hear how it all ended.
"And then, and then," I said.
"And then, my dear, this French fellow, your papa he must have been—so I suppose I must not abuse him, and he was a very fine young man after all, and a man of honour as well—he stood and cursed us all."
"'You English fools,' he said, 'you braggards—cowards.' And he seized a glass of wine from the table and with a sweep he dashed it at us and ended by flinging the empty glass in Lord Waterpark's face. It was the neatest thing you ever saw, for we all got a drop except Waterpark, and he got the glass. 'I challenge you all,' said the Frenchman, 'I'll fight you one by one, and I shall have her into the bargain.' And so he did, my dear, he fought us all, one after the other; there were five of us; he was a devil with the sword, but Ned Cuffe ran him through for all that—and he was a month getting over it, but as soon as he could crawl again he vowed himself ready for Waterpark, and weak as he was he ran poor Waterpark through the lungs. Some said Jack spitted himself on his sword—but dead he was anyhow, and monsieur your father—what was his name? Kerme-something—was off with your mother before the rest of us were well out of bed."
"Fie, fie, my lord," said Tanty, "you should not recall old stories in this manner!"
"Gad, ma'am, I warrant this young lady is quite ready to provide you with a few new ones," chuckled my lord; and as there was no more to be extracted from him but foolish old jokes and dreadful smiles, I contrived to free my "pretty little hand," and sit down demurely by Tanty's side like the modest retiring young female I should be.
But my blood was dancing in my veins—the blood of Murthering Moll—doddering old idiot as he is, Lord Manningham is right for once, I mean to take quite as much out of life as she did. That indeed is worth being young and beautiful for! We know nothing of our family, save that both father and mother were killed in Vendée. Tanty never will tell us anything about them (except their coats of arms), and I am afraid even to start the subject, for she always branches off upon heraldry and then we are in for hours of it. But after Lord Manningham was gone I asked her when and how my grandmother died.
"She died when your mother was born, my dear," said Tanty, "she was not as old as you are now, and your grandfather never smiled again, or so they said."
That sobered me a little. Yet she lived her life so well, while she did live, that I who have wasted twentyprecious years can find in my heart rather to envy than to pity my beautiful grandmother.
November 5th.—It isthree o'clock in the morning, but I do not feel at all inclined to go to bed. Madeleine is sleeping, poor pretty pale Madeleine! with the tears hardly dry upon her cheeks and I can hear her sighing in her sleep.
I was right, she is in love, and the gentleman she loves is not approved of by Tanty and the upshot of it all is we are to leave dear Bath, delightful Bath, to-morrow—to-day rather—for some unknown penitential region which our stern relative as yet declines to name. I am longing to hear more about it; but Tanty, who, though she talks so much, can keep her own counsel better than any woman I know, will not give me any further information beyond the facts that the delinquent who has dared to aspire to my sister is a person ofthe name of Smith, and that it would not do at all.
I have not the heart to wake Madeleine to make her tell me more, though I really ought to pinch her well for being so secretive—besides, my head is so full of my own day that I want to get it all written down, and I shall never have done so unless I begin at the beginning.
Yesterday, then, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon Lord Dereham's coach and four came clattering up to our door to call for me. Mrs. Hambledon was already installed and Lady Soames and a dozen other of thefashionablesof Bath. My little Lord Marquis had kept the box seat for me, at which the other ladies, even my dear friend and chaperon, looked rather green. The weather was glorious, and off we went with a flourish of trumpets and whips, and I knew I should enjoy myself monstrously.
And so I did. But it was the drive back that was thebestof all. We never started till near nine o'clock, and Lord Dereham insisted on my sitting beside him again—at which all the ladies looked daggersat meand all the gentlemen daggersat him. And then we sang songs and tore along uphill and down dale, under the beautiful moonlight, through the still air, till all at once we found we had lost our way. We had to drive on till we came to an inn and we could make inquiries. There the gentlemen opened another hamper of wine, and when we set offagain I promise you they were all prettylively(and most of the ladies too, for the matter of that). As for me, who never drank anything but milk or water till six months ago, I have not learnt to like wine yet, so, though I sipped out of the glass to keep the fun going, I contrived to dispose of the contents, quietly over the side of the coach, when no one was looking.
It was a drive to remember. We came to a big hill, and as we were going down it at a smart pace the coach began to sway, then the ladies began to screech, and even the men looked so scared that I laughed outright. Lord Dereham was perfectly tipsy and he did not know the road a bit, but he drove in beautiful style and was extraordinarily amusing; as soon as the coach took to swaying, instead of slackening speed as they all begged him, helashedthe horses into a tearing gallop, looking over his shoulder at the rest and cursing them with the greatest energy, grinning with rage, and looking more like a little white rat thanever.
"Give me the whip," said I, "and I shall whip the team while you drive."
"Cuth me," cried he, "if you are not worth the whole coach-load a dozen times over."
On we went; the coach rocked, the horses galloped, and I knew at any moment the whole thing might upset, and I flourished my whip and lashed at the steaming flanks and I never felt what it was to really enjoy myself before.
Presently, although we were tearing along so fast, the coach steadied itself and went as straight as an arrow; and this, it seems, it would never have done had not Lord Dereham kept up the pace.
And all the rest of the drive his lordship wanted to kiss me. I was not a bit frightened, though he was drunk, but every time he grew too forward I just flicked at the horses with the whip, and I think he saw that I would have cracked him across the face quite as readily if he dared to presume.
No doubt a dozen times during the day I could have secured a coronet for myself, not to speak of future 'strawberry leaves,' as my aunt says, if I had cared to; but who could think of loving a man likethat? He can manage four horses, and he has shot two men in a duel,and he can drink three bottles of wine at a sitting, and when one tries to find something more to say for him, lo! that is all!
When we at length arrived at Camden Place, for I vowed they must leave me home the first, there was the rarest sport. My lord's grooms must set to blow the horns, for they were as drunk as their master, while one of the gentlemen played upon the knocker till the whole crescent was aroused.
Then the doors opened suddenly,and Tanty appearson the threshold, holding a candle. Her turban was quite crooked, with the birds of Paradise over one eye, and I never saw her old nose look so hooked. All the gentlemen set up a shout, and Sir Thomas Wrexham began to crow like a cock for no reason on earth that I can think of. The servants were holding up lanterns, but the moon was nigh as bright as day.
Tanty just looked round upon them one after another, and in spite of her crooked turban I think they all grew frightened. Then she caught hold of me, and just whisked me behind her. Next she spied out Mrs. Hambledon, who had been asleep inside the coach, and now tumbled forth, yawning and gaping.
"And so, madam," cries Tanty to her, not very loud, but in a voice that made even me tremble; "so, madam, this is how you fulfil the confidence I placed in you. A pretty chaperon you are to have the charge of a young lady; though, indeed, considering your years, madam, I might have been justified in trusting you."
Mrs. Hambledon, cut short in the middle of a loud yawn by this attack, was a sight to see.
"Hoighty-toighty, ma'am!" she cried, indignantly, as soon as she could get her voice; "here's a fine to-do. It is my fault, of course, that Lord Dereham should mistake the road. And my fault too, no doubt, that your miss should make an exhibition of herself riding on the box with the gentlemen at this hour of night, when I implored her to come inside with me, were it only for the sake of common female propriety."
"Common female indeed!" echoed Tanty, with a snort; "the poor child knew better."
"Cuth the old cats! they'll have each other'th eyeth out," here cried my lord marquis, interposing his littletipsy person between them. He had scrambled down the box after me, and was listening with an air of profound wisdom that made me feel fit to die laughing. "Don't you mind her, old lady," he went on, addressing Tanty; "Mith Molly ith quite able to take care of herself—damme if she'th not."
Aunt Donoghue turned upon him majestically.
"And then that is more than can be said for you, my poor young man," she exclaimed; and I vow he looked as sobered as if she had flung a bucket of cold water over him. Upon this she retired and shut the door, and marched me upstairs before her without a word.
Before my room door she stopped.
"Mrs. Dempsey has already packed your sister's trunks," she said, in a very dry way; "and she will begin to pack yours early—I was going to say to-morrow—but you keep such hours, my dear—it will beto-day."
I stared at her as if she had gone mad.
"You and your sister," she went on, "have got beyond me. I have taken my resolution and given my orders, and there is not the least use making a scene."
And then it came out about Madeleine. At first I thought I would go into a great passion and refuse to obey, but after a minute or two I saw it was, as she said, no use. Tanty was as cool as a cucumber. Then I thought perhaps I might mollify her if I could cry, but I couldn't pump up a tear; I never can; and at last when I went into my room and saw poor Madeleine, who has cried herself to sleep, evidently, I understood that there was nothing for us but to do as we were told.
And now I can hear Tanty fussing about her room still—she has been writing, too—cra, cra, cra—this last hour. I wonder who to? After all there is some fun in being taken off mysteriously we don't know where. I should like to go and kiss her, but she thinks I am abed.
No contrary advice having reached Pulwick since Miss O'Donoghue'sletter of invoice, as Mr. Landale facetiously described it, he drove over to Lancaster on the day appointed to meet the party.
And thus it came to pass that through the irresistible management of Miss O'Donoghue, who put into the promotion of her scheme all the energy belonging to her branch of the family, together with the long habit of authority of theTante à héritage, the daughters of Cécile de Savenaye returned to that first home of theirs, of which they had forgotten even the name.
Mr. Landale had not set eyes on his valuable relative for many years, but her greeting, at the first renewal of intercourse which took place in the principal parlour of the Lancaster Inn, was as easily detached in manner as though they had just met again after a trifling absence and she was bringing her charges to his house in accordance with a mutual agreement.
"My dear Rupert," cried she, "I am glad to see you again. I need not ask you how you are, you look so extremely sleek and prosperous. Adrian's wide acres are succulent, hey? I should have known you anywhere; though to be sure, you are hardly large enough for the breed, you have the true Landale stamp on you, the unmistakable Landale style of feature.Semper eadem.In that sense, at least, one can apply your ancient and once worthy motto to you; and you know, nephew, since you have conveniently changed your faith, both to God and king, this sentiment strikes one as a sarcasm amidst the achievements of Landale, you backsliders! Ah, we O'Donoghues have better maintained our device,sans changier."
Rupert, to whom the well-known volubility of his aunt was most particularly disagreeable, but who had nevertheless saluted the stalwart old lady's cheek with much affection, here bent his supple back with a sort of mocking gallantry.
"You maintain yourdevice, permit me to say, my dear aunt, as ostentatiously in your person as we renegade Landales ourselves."
"Pooh, pooh! I am too old a bird to be caught by such chaff, nephew; it is pearls before.... I mean it is too late in the day, my dear. Keep it for the young things. And indeed I see the sheep's eyes you have been casting in their direction. Come nearer, young ladies, and make your cousin's acquaintance," beckoning to her nieces, who, arrayed in warm travelling pelisses and beaver bonnets of fashionable appearance, stood in the background near the fireplace.
"They are very like, are they not?" she continued. "Twins always are; as like as two peas. And yet these are as different as day and night when you come to know them. Madeleine is the eldest; that is she in the beaver fur; Molly prefers bear. Without their bonnets you will distinguish them by their complexion. Molly has raven hair (she is the truest O'Donoghue), whilst Madeleine is fair,blonde, like her Breton father."
The sisters greeted their new-found guardian, each in her own way. And, in spite of the disguising bonnets and their surprising similarity of voice, height, and build, the difference was more marked than that of beaver and bear.
Madeleine acknowledged her kinsman's greeting with a dainty curtsey and little half-shy smile, marked by that air of distinction and breeding which was her peculiar characteristic. Molly, however, who thought she had reasonable cause for feeling generally exasperated, and who did not see in Mr. Rupert Landale, despite his good looks and his good manner, a very promising substitute for her Bath admirers (nor in the prospect of Pulwick a profitable exchange for Bath), came forward with her bolder grace to flounce him a saucy "reverence," measuring him the while with a certain air of mockery which his thin-skinned susceptibility was quick to seize.
He looked back at her down the long tunnel of herbonnet, appraising the bloom and beauty within with cold and curious gaze, and then he turned to Madeleine and made to her his courteous speech of welcome.
This was sufficient for Miss Molly, who, for six months already accustomed to compel admiration at first sight from all specimens of the male sex that came across her path, instantly vowed a deadly hatred to her cousin, and followed the party into the Landale family coach—Rupert preceding, with a lady on each arm—in a temper as black as her own locks.
It fell to her lot to sit beside the objectionable relative on the back seat, while, by the right of her minute's seniority, Madeleine sat beside Tanty in the front. The projecting wings of her headgear effectively prevented her from watching his demeanour, unless, indeed, she had turned to him, which was, of course, out of the question; but certain fugitive conscious blushes upon the young face in front of her, certain castings down of long lashes and timid upward glances, made Molly shrewdly conjecture that Mr. Landale, through all the apparent devotion with which he listened to Tanty's continuous flow of observations, was able to bestow a certain amount of attention upon her pretty neighbour.
Tanty herself conducted the conversation with her usual high hand, feigning utter oblivion of the thundercloud on Molly's countenance; and, if somewhat rambling in her discourse, nevertheless contriving to plant her points where she chose.
Thus the long drive wore to its end. The sun was golden upon Pulwick when the carriage at length drew up before the portico. Miss Sophia received them in the hall, in a state of painful flutter and timidity. She had a constitutional terror of her aunt's sharp eyes, and, though she examined her young cousins wistfully, Madeleine's unconscious air of dignity repelled her as much as Molly's deliberate pertness.
Rupert conducted his aunt upstairs, and down the long echoing corridor towards her apartment.
"Ha, my old quarters," quoth Tanty, disengaging herself briskly from her escort to enter the room and look round approvingly, "and very comfortable they are. And my two nieces are next door, I see, as gay as chintz can make them. Thank you, nephew, I shall keep youno longer. We shall dine shortly, I feel sure. Well, well, I do not pretend I am not quite ready to do justice to your excellent fare—beyond doubt, it will be excellent! Go to your room, girls, your baggage is coming up, you see; I shall send Dempsey to assist you presently. No, not you, Sophia, I was speaking to the young ones. I should like to have a little chat with you, my dear, if you have no objection."
One door closed upon Rupert as he smiled and bowed himself out, the other upon Molly hustling her sister before her.
Tanty in the highest good humour, having accomplished her desire, and successfully "established a lodgment" (to use a military term not inappropriate to such a martial spirit) for her troublesome nieces in the stronghold of Pulwick, once more surveyed her surroundings: the dim old walls, the great four-post bed, consecrated, of course, by tradition to the memory of some royal slumberer, the damask hangings, and the uncomfortable chairs, with the utmost favour, ending up with a humorous examination of the elongated figure hesitating on the hearthrug.
"Be seated, Sophia. I am glad to stretch my old limbs after that terrible drive. So here we are together again. What are you sighing for? Upon my soul, you are the same as ever, I see, the same tombstone on your chest, and blowing yourself out with sighs, just as you used. That will never give you a figure, my poor girl; it is no wonder you are but skin and bones. Ah, can't you let the poor fellow rest in his grave Sophia? it is flying in the face of Providence, I call it, to go on perpetually stirring up his ashes like that. I hope you mean to try and be a little more cheerful with those poor girls. But, there, I believe you are never so happy as when you are miserable. And it's a poor creature you would be at any time," added the old lady to herself, after a second thoughtful investigation of Miss Landale's countenance, which had assumed an expression of mulishness in addition to an increase of dolefulness during this homily.
Here, to Miss Landale's great relief, the dying sunset, wavering into crimson and purple, from its first glory of liquid gold, attracted her aunt's attention, and Miss O'Donoghue went over to the window.
Beneath her spread the quaint garden, with its clipped box edges, and beyond the now leafless belt of trees, upon the glimmer of the bay, the outline of Scarthey, a dark silhouette rose fantastically against the vivid sky. Even as she gazed, there leapt upon its fairy turret a minute point of white.
The jovial old countenance changed and darkened.
"And Adrian is still at his fool's game over there, I suppose," she said irately turning upon Sophia. "When have you seen him last? How often does he come here? I gather Master Rupert is nothing if not the master. Why don't you answer me, Sophia?"
The dinner was as well cooked and served a meal as any under Rupert's rule, which is saying a good deal, and if the young ladies failed to appreciate the "floating island," the "golden nests," and "silver web," so thoughtfully provided for them, Tanty did ample justice to the venison.
Indeed the cloud which had been visible upon her countenance at the beginning of dinner, and which according to that downright habit of mind, which rendered her so terrible or so delightful a companion, she made no attempt to conceal, began to lift towards the first remove, and altogether vanished over her final glass of port.
After dinner she peremptorily ordered her grand-nieces into the retirement of their bedchambers, unblushingly alleging their exhausted condition in front of the perfect bloom of their beautiful young vigour.
She then, over a cup of tea, luxuriously stretching her thin frame in the best arm-chair the drawing-room could afford, gave Rupert a brief code of directions as to the special attentions and care she desired to be bestowed upon her wards, during their residence at Pulwick, descanting generously upon their various perfections, gliding dexterously over her reasons for wishing to be rid of them herself, and concluding with the hint—either pregnant or barren of meaning as he chose to take it—that if he made their stay pleasant to them, she would not forget the service.
Then, as Mr. Landale began, with apparent guilelessness, to put a few little telling questions to her anent the episodes which had made Bath undesirable as a residencefor these young paragons, the old lady suddenly became overwhelmed with fatigue and sleepiness, and professed herself ready to be conducted to her bower immediately.
Meanwhile, despite themoue de circonstancewhich Molly thought it incumbent on her to assume, neither she nor Madeleine regretted their compulsory withdrawal from the social circle downstairs.
Madeleine had her own thoughts to follow up, and that these were both engrossing and pleasant was easily evident; and Molly, bursting with a sense of injury arising from many causes, desired a special explanation with her sister, which the presence in and out upon them of Tanty's woman had prevented her from indulging in before dinner.
"So here we are at last," cried she, indignantly, after she had walked round and severely inspected her quarters, pausing to "pull a lip" of extreme disfavour at the handsome portrait of Mr. Landale that hung between the windows, "we are, Madeleine, at last, kidnapped, imprisoned, successfully disposed of, in fact."
"Yes, here we are at last," echoed Madeleine, abstractedly, warming her slender ankles by the fire.
"Have you made out yet what particular kind of new frenzy it was that seized chère Tante?" asked Miss Molly, with great emphasis, as she sat down at her toilet-table. "You are the cause of it all, my dear, and so you ought to know. It is all very well for Tanty to pretend that I have brought it on myself by not coming home till three o'clock (as if that wasmyfault). She cannot blink the fact that her Dempsey creature had orders to pack my boxes before bedtime. Your Smith must be a desperately dangerous individual. Well," she continued, looking round over her shoulder, "why don't you say something, you lackadaisical thing?"
But Madeleine answered nought and continued gazing, while only the little smile, tilting the corners of her lips, betrayed that she had heard the petulant speech.
The smile put the finishing touch to Molly's righteous anger. Brandishing a hairbrush threateningly, she marched over to her sister and looked down upon the slender figure, in its clinging white dress, with blazing eyes.
"Look here," she cried, "there must be an end of this. I can put up with your slyness no longer. Howdareyou have secrets from me, miss?—your own twin sister! You and I, who used never to have a thought we did not share. How dare you have a lover, and not tell me all about him? What was the meaning of your weeping like a fountain all the way from Bath to Shrewsbury, and then, without rhyme or reason apparently, smiling to yourself all the way from there to Lancaster. You have had a letter, don't attempt to deny it, it is of no use.... Oh, it is base of you, it is indeed! And to think that it is all through you that I am forced into this exile, through yourairs penchés, and your sighing and dreaming, and your mysterousSmith.... To think that to-night, this very night, is the ball of the season, and we are going to bed! Oh, and to-morrow and to-morrow, and to-morrow, with nothing but a knave and a fool to keep us company—for I don't think much of your female cousin, Madeleine, and, as for your male cousin, I perfectly detest him—and all the tabbies of the country-side for diversion, with perhaps a country buck on high days and holidays for a relish! Pah!"
Molly had almost talked her ill-humour away. Her energetic nature could throw off most unpleasant emotions easily enough so long as it might have an outlet for them; she now laid down the threatening brush, and, kneeling beside her, flung both her arms round Madeleine's shoulders.
"Ma petite Madeleine," she coaxed, in the mother tongue, "tell thy little sister thy secrets."
A faint flush crept to Madeleine's usually creamy cheeks, a light into her eyes. She turned impulsively to the face near hers, then, as if bethinking herself, pursed her lips together and shook her head slightly.
"Do you remember, ma chèrie," she said, at last, "that French tale Mrs. Hambledon lent us in which it is said'Qui fuit l'amour, l'amour suit.'"
"Well?" asked Molly, eagerly, her lips parted as if to drink in the expected confidence.
"Well," replied the other, "well, perhaps things may not be so bad after all. Perhaps," rising from her seat, and looking at her sister with a little gentle malice, while she, too, began to disrobe her fairer beauty for the night,"some of your many lovers may come after you from Bath! Oh, Molly!" with a little scream, for Molly, with eyes flashing once more, had sprung up from her knees to inflict a vicious pinch upon the equivocator's arm.
"Yes, miss, you shall be pinched till you confess." Then flouting her with a sudden change of mood, "I am sure I don't want to know your wonderful secret,"—seizing her comb and passing it crackling through her hair with quite unnecessary energy—"Mademoiselle la Cachotière. Anyhow, it cannot be very interesting....Mrs. Smith!Fancy caring for a man called Smith! If you smile again like that, Madeleine, I shall beat you."
The two sisters looked at each other for a second as if hesitating on the brink of anger, and then both laughed.
"Never mind, I shall pay you out yet," quoth Molly, tugging at her black mane. "So our lovers are to come after us, isthatit? Do you know, Madeleine," she went on, calming down, "I almost regret now that I would not listen to young Lord Dereham, simpleton though he be. He looked such a dreadful little fright that I only laughed at him.... I should have laughed at him all my life. But it would perhaps have been better than this dependence on Tanty, with her sudden whims and scampers and whisking of us away into the wilderness. Then I should have had my own way always. Now it's too late. Tanty told me yesterday that she sees he is a dissolute young man, and that his dukedom is only a Charles II. creation, and 'We know what that means,' she added, and shook her head. I am sure I had not a notion, but I shook my head too, and said, 'Of course, that made it impossible.' I was really afraid she would want me to marry him. She was dreadfully pleased and said I was a true O'Donoghue. Oh, dear! I don't knowanythingabout love. I can't imagine being in love; but one thing is certain, I could never, never, never allow a horrid little rat like Lord Dereham to make love to me, to kiss me, nor, indeed, any man—oh, horror! How you are blushing, my dear! Come here into the light. It would be good for your soul, indeed it would, to confess!"
But Madeleine, burying her hot cheeks in her sister's neck and clasping her with gentle caresses, was not to bedrawn from her reticence. Molly pushed her off at last, and gave a hard little good-night kiss like a bird-peck.
"Very well; but you might as well have confessed, for I shall find out in the long run. And who knows, perhaps you may be sorry one day that you did not tell me of your own accord."
The gallery of family portraits at Pulwick is one of the most remarkable features of that ancient house.
It was a custom firmly established at the Priory—ever since the first heralds' visitation in Lancashire, when some mooted point of claims to certain quarterings had been cleared in an unexpected way by the testimony of a well-authenticated ancestral portrait—for each successive representative to add to the collection. One of the first cares of every Landale, therefore, on succeeding to the title was to be painted, with his proper armorial and otherwise distinguishing honours jealously delineated, and thus hung in the place of honour over the high mantelshelf of the gallery—displacing on the occasion his own immediate and revered predecessor.
The chain was consequently unbroken from the Elizabethan descendants of the first acquirers of ecclesiastical property at Pulwick, down to the present Light-keeper of Scarthey.
But whilst the late Sir Thomas appeared in all the majesty of deputy-lieutenant, colonel of Militia, magistrate, and sundry other honourable offices, in his due place on the right of the present baronet, the latter figured in a character so strange and so incongruous that it seemed as if one day the dignified array of Landales—old, young, middle-aged, but fine gentlemen, all of them—must turn their backs upon their degenerate kinsman.
Over the chimney-piece, in the huge carved-oak frame (now already two centuries old), a common sailor, in the striped loose trousers, the blue jacket with red piping of a man-of-war's man, with pigtail and coarse open shirt—stood boldly forth as the representative of the present owner of Pulwick.
Proud of their long line of progenitors, it was a not unusual thing for the Landales to entertain their guests at breakfast in a certain sunny bow-window in the portrait gallery rather than in the breakfast parlour proper, which in winter, unmistakably harboured more damp than was pleasant.
It was, therefore, with no surprise that Miss Landale received an early order from her brother to have a fire lighted in the apartment sacred to the family honours, and the matutinal repast served there in due course.
Whether Mr. Landale was actuated by a regard for the rheumatism of his worthy relative, or merely a natural family pride, or by some other and less simple motive, he saw no necessity for informing his docile housewife on the matter.
As Sophia was accustomed to no such condescension on his part even in circumstances more extraordinary, she merely bundled out of bed unquestioningly in the darkness and cold of the morning to see his orders executed in the proper manner; which, indeed, to her credit was so successfully accomplished that Tanty and her charges, when they made their entry upon the scene, could not fail to be impressed with the comfortable aspect of the majestic old room.
Mr. Landale examined his two young uninvited guests with new keenness in the morning light. Molly was demure enough, though there was a lurking gleam in her dark eye which suggested rather armed truce than accepted peace. As for Madeleine, though to be serene was an actual necessity of her delicate nature, there was more than resignation in the blushing radiance of her look and smile.
"Portraits of their mother," said Rupert, bringing his critical survey to a close, and stepping forward with a nice action of the legs to present his arm to his aunt. "Portraits of their mother both of them—I trust to that miniature which used to grace our collection in the drawing-room rather than to the treacherous memory of a school-boy for the impression—but portraits by different masters and in different moods."
There was something patronising in the tone from so young a man, which Molly resented on the spot.
"Oh, we should be as like as two peas, only that weare as different as day and night, as Tanty says," she retorted, tossing her white chin at her host, while Miss O'Donoghue laughed aloud at her favourite's sauciness.
"And after all," said Rupert, as he bestowed his venerable relative on her chair, with an ineffable air of politeness, contradicted, though only for an instant, by the look which he shot at Molly from the light hazel eyes, "Tanty is not so far wrong—the only difference between night and day is the difference between thebrunetteand theblonde," with a little bow to each of the sisters, "an Irish bull, if one comes to analyse it, is but the expression of the too rapid working of quick wits."
"Faith, nephew," said Tanty, sitting down in high good humour to the innumerable good things in which her Epicurean old soul delighted, "that is about as true a thing as ever you said. Our Irish tongues are apt to get behind a thing before it is there, and they call that making a bull."
Rupert's sense of humour was as keen as most of his other faculties, and at the unconscious humour of this sally his laugh rang out frankly, while Molly and Madeleine giggled in their plates, and Miss O'Donoghue chuckled quietly to herself in the intervals of eating and drinking, content to have been witty, without troubling to discover how.
Sophia alone remained unmoved by mirth; indeed, as she raised her drooping head, amazed at the clamour, an unwary tear trickled down her long nose into her tea. She was given to revelling in anniversaries of dead and gone joys or sorrows; the one as melancholy to her to look back upon as the other; and upon this November day, now very many years ago, had the ardent, consumptive rector first hinted at his love.
"And now," said Miss O'Donoghue, who, having disposed of the most serious part of the breakfast, pushed away her plate with one hand while she stirred her second cup of well-creamed tea lazily with the other, "Now, Rupert, will you tell me the arrangements you propose to make to enable me to see your good brother?"
Rupert had anticipated being attacked upon this subject, and had fully prepared himself to defend the peculiar position it was his interest to maintain. To encourage a meeting between his brother and the old lady (to whomthe present position of affairs was a grievous offence) did not, certainly, enter into his plan of action; but Tanty had put the question in an unexpected and slightly awkward shape, and for a second or two he hesitated before replying.
"I fear," said he then, gliding into the subject with his usual easy fluency, "that you will be disappointed if you have been reckoning upon an interview with Adrian, my dear aunt. The hermit will not be drawn from his shell on any pretext."
"What," cried Tanty, while her withered cheek flushed, "do you mean to tell me that my nephew, Sir Adrian Landale, will decline to come a few hundred yards to see his old aunt—his mother's own sister—who has come three hundred miles, at seventy years of age, to see him in his own house—in his own house?" repeated the irate old lady, rattling the spoon with much emphasis against her cup. "If youmeanthis, Rupert, it is an insult to me which I shall never forget—never."
She rose from her seat as she concluded, shaking with the tremulous anger of age.
"For God's sake, Tanty," cried Rupert, throwing into his voice all the generous warmth he was capable of simulating, "do not hold me responsible for Adrian in this matter. His strange vagaries are not of my suggesting, heaven knows."
"Well, nephew," said Miss O'Donoghue, loftily, "if you will kindly send the letter I am about to write to your brother, by a safe messenger, immediately, I shall believe that it isyourwish to treat me with proper respect, whatever may be Adrian's subsequent behaviour."
Mr. Landale's countenance assumed an expression of very genuine distress; this was just the one proof of dutiful attachment that he was loth to bestow upon his cherished aunt.
"I see how it is," he exclaimed earnestly, coming up to the old lady, and laying his hand gently upon her arm, "you entirely misunderstand the situation. I am not a free agent in this matter. I cannot do what you ask; I am bound by pledge. Adrian is, undoubtedly, more than—peculiar on certain points, and, really, I dare not, if I would, thwart him."
"Oh!" cried Tanty, shooting off the ejaculation asfrom a pop-gun. Then, shaking herself free of Rupert's touch, she sat down abruptly in her chair again, and began fanning herself with her handkerchief. Not even in her interchange of amenities with Mrs. Hambledon, had Molly seen her display so much indignation.
"You want me to believe he is mad, I suppose?" she snapped, at last.
"Dear me! No, no, no!" responded the other, in his airy way. "I did not mean to go so far as that; but—well, there are very painful matters, and hitherto I have avoided all discussion upon them, even with Sophia. My affection for Adrian——"
"Fiddlesticks!" interrupted Tanty. "You meant something, I suppose; either the man's mad, or he is not. And I, for one, don't believe a word of it. The worst sign about him, that I can see, is the blind confidence the poor fellow seems to put in you."
Here Molly, who had been listening to the discussion "with all her ears"—anything connected with the mysterious personality of the absent head of the house was beginning to have a special fascination for her—gave an irrepressible little note of laughter.
Rupert looked up at her quickly, and their eyes met.
"Hold your tongue, Miss," cried Miss O'Donoghue, sharply; aware that she had gone too far in her last remark, and glad to relieve her oppression in another direction, "how dare you laugh? Sophia, this is a terrible thing your brother wants me to believe—may I ask whatyouropinion is? Though I'll not deny I don't think that will be worth much."
Sophia glanced helplessly at Rupert, but he was far too carefully possessed of himself to affect to perceive her embarrassment.
"Come, come," cried Miss O'Donoghue, whose eyes nothing escaped, "you need not look at Rupert, you can answer for yourself, I suppose—you are not absolutely a drivelling idiot—allthe Landales are not ripening for lunatic asylums—collect your wits, Sophia, I know you have not got any, but you haveenoughto be able to give a plain answer to a plain question, I suppose. Do you think your brother mad, child?"
"God forbid," murmured Sophia, at the very extremity of those wits of which Miss O'Donoghue had so poor anopinion. "Oh, no, dear aunt, notmad, of course, not in the leastmad."
Then, gathering from a restless movement of Rupert's that she was not upon the right tack she faltered, floundered wildly, and finally drew forth the inevitable pocket-handkerchief, to add feelingly if irrelevantly from its folds, "And indeed if I thought such a calamity had really fallen upon us—and of course therearesymptoms, no doubt there are symptoms...."
"What are his symptoms—has he tried to murder any of you, hey?"
"Oh, my dear aunt! No, indeed, dear Adrian is gentleness itself."
"Does he bite? Does he gibber? Oh, away with you, Sophia! I am sure I cannot wonder at the poor fellow wanting to live on a rock, between you and Rupert. I am sure the periwinkles and the gulls must be pleasant company compared to you. That alone would show, I should think, that he knows right well what he is about. Mad indeed! There never was any madness among the O'Donoghues except your poor uncle Michael, who got a box on the ear from a windmill—andhewasn't an O'Donoghue at all! You will be kind enough, nephew, to have delivered to Sir Adrian, no later than to-day, the letter which I shall this moment indite to him."
"Perhaps," said Rupert, "if you will only favour me with your attention for a few minutes first, aunt, and allow me to narrate to you the circumstances of my brother's return here, and of his subsequent self-exile, you will see fit to change your opinion, both as regards him and myself."
A self-controlled nature will in the long run, rightly or wrongly, always assume the ascendency over an excitable one. The moderateness of Rupert's words, the coolness of his manner, here brought Tanty rapidly down from her pinnacle of passion.
Certainly, she said, she was not only ready, but anxious to hear all that Rupert could have to say for himself; and, smoothing down her black satin apron with a shaking hand, the old lady prepared to listen with as much judicial dignity as her flustered state allowed her to assume. Rupert drew his chair opposite to hers andleant his elbow on the table, and fixed his bright, hard eyes upon her.
"You remember, of course," he began after a moment's pause, "how at the time of my poor father's death, Adrian was reported to have lost his life in the Vendée war—though without authoritative confirmation—at the same time as the fair and unhappy Countesse de Savenaye, to whose fortune he had so chivalrously devoted himself."
Tanty bowed her head in solemn assent; but Molly, watching with the most acute attention, felt her face blaze at the indefinable shade of mockery she thought to catch upon the speaker's curling lip.
"It was," continued he, "the constant strain, the long months of watching in vain for tidings, that told upon my father, rather than the actual grief of loss. When he died, the responsibilities of the headship of the house devolved naturally upon me, the only male representative left, seemingly, to undertake them. The months went by; to the most sanguine the belief in Adrian's death became inevitable. Our hopes died slowly, but they died at last; we mourned for him," here Rupert cast down his eyes till the thick black lashes which were one of his beauties swept his cheek; his tone was perfect in its simple gravity. "At length, urged thereto by all the family, if I remember rightly by yourself as well, dear aunt, I assumed the title as well as the position which seemed mine by right. I was very young at the time, but I do not think that either then, or during the ten years that followed, I unworthily filled my brother's place."
There was a proud ring of sincerity in the last words, and the old lady knew that they were true; that during the years of his absolute power as well as of his present more restricted mastership, Rupert's management of the estate was unimpeachable.
"Certainly not, my dear Rupert," she said in softer tones than she had hitherto used to him, "no one would dream of suggesting such a thing—pray go on."
"And so," pursued the nephew, with a short laugh, relapsing into that light tone of banter which was his most natural mode of expression; "when, one fine day, a hired coach clattered up Sir Rupert Landale's avenue and deposited upon his porch a tattered mariner whoannounced himself, in melancholy tones that would have befitted the ghost no doubt many took him for, as the rightful Sir Adrian, erroneously supposed defunct, I confess that it required a little persuasion to make me recognise my long-lost brother—and yet there could be no doubt of it. The missing heir had come to his own again; the dead had come back to life. Well, we killed the fatted calf, and all the rest of it—but I need not inflict upon you the narrative of our rejoicing."
"Faith, no," said Tanty, drily, "I can see it with half an eye."