"LOVE GILDS THE SCENE AND WOMAN GUIDES THE PLOT"
Tanty's wrath upon discovering Sir Adrian's departure was all the
greater because she could extort no real explanation from Rupert, and
because her attacks rebounded, as it were, from the polished surface
he exposed to them on every side. Madeleine's indifference, and
Molly's apparently reckless spirits, further discomposed her during
supper; and upon the latter young lady's disappearance after the meal,
it was as much as she could do to finish her nightly game of patience
before mounting to seek her with the purpose of relieving her
overcharged feelings, and procuring what enlightenment she might.
The unwonted spectacle of the saucy damsel in tears made Miss
O'Donoghue halt upon the threshold, the hot wind of anger upon which
she seemed to be propelled into the room falling into sudden
nothingness.
There could be no mistake about it. Molly was weeping; so
energetically indeed, with such a passion of tears and sobs, that the
noise of Tanty's tumultuous entrance fell unheeded upon her ears.
All her sympathies stirred within her, the old lady advanced to the
girl with the intention of gathering her to her bosom. But as she drew
near, the black and white of the open diary attracted her eye under
the circle of lamplight, and being possessed of excellent long sight,
she thought it no shame to utilise the same across her grand-niece's
prostrate, heaving form, before making known her presence.
_"And so I sit and cry."_
Miss Molly was carrying out her programme with much precision, if
indeed her attitude, prone along the table, could be described as
sitting.
Miss O'Donoghue's eyes and mouth grew round, as with the expression of
an outraged cockatoo she read and re-read the tell-tale phrases. Here
was a complication she had not calculated upon.
"Dear, dear," she cried, clacking her tongue in disconsolate fashion,
so soon as she could get her breath. "What is the meaning of this, my
poor girl?"
Molly leaped to her feet, and turning a blazing, disfigured
countenance upon her relative, exclaimed with more energy than
politeness: "Good gracious, aunt, what _do_ you want?"
Then catching sight of the open diary, she looked suspiciously from it
to her visitor, and closed it with a hasty hand. But Miss O'Donoghue's
next words settled the doubt.
"Well, to be sure, what a state you have put yourself into," she
pursued in genuine distress. "What has happened then between you and
that fellow, whom I declare I begin to believe as crazy as Rupert
says, that you should be crying your eyes out over his going back to
his island?--you that I thought could not shed a tear if you tried.
Nothing left but to sit and cry, indeed."
"So you have been reading my diary, you mean thing," cried Miss Molly,
stamping her foot. "How dare you come creeping in here, spying at my
private concerns! Oh! oh! oh!" with unpremeditated artfulness,
relapsing into a paroxysm of sobs just in time to avert the volley of
rebuke with which the hot-tempered old lady was about to greet this
disrespectful outburst. "I am the most miserable girl in all the
world. I wish I were dead, I do."
Again Tanty opened her arms, and this time she did draw the stormy
creature to a bosom, as warm and motherly as if all the joys of
womanhood had not been withheld from it.
"Tell me all about it, my poor child." There was a distinct feeling of
comfort in the grasp of the old arms, comfort in the very ring of the
deep voice. Molly was not a secretive person by nature, and moreover
she retained quite enough shrewdness, even in her unwonted break-down,
to conjecture that with Tanty lay her sole hope of help. So rolling
her dark head distractedly on the old maid's shoulder, the young maid
narrated her tale of woe. Pressed by a pointed question here and
there, Tanty soon collected a series of impressions of Molly's visit
to Scarthey, that set her busy mind working upon a startlingly new
line. It was her nature to jump at conclusions, and it was not strange
that the girl's passionate display of grief should seem to be the
unmistakable outcome of tenderer feelings than the wounded pride and
disappointment which were in reality its sole motors.
"I am convinced it is Rupert that is at the bottom of it," cried Molly
at last, springing into uprightness again, and clenching her hands.
"His one idea is to drive his brother permanently from his own
home--and he _hates me_."
Tanty sat rigid with thought.
So Molly was in love with Sir Adrian Landale, and he--who knows--was
in love with her too; or if not with her, with her likeness to her
mother, and that was much the same thing when all was said and done.
Could anything be more suitable, more fortunate? Could ever two birds
be killed with one stone with more complete felicity than in this
settling of the two people she most loved upon earth? Poor pretty
Molly! The old lady's heart grew very tender over the girl who now
stood half sullenly, half bashfully averting her swollen face; five
days ago she had not known her handsome cousin, and now she was
breaking her heart for him.
It might be, indeed, as she said, that they had to thank Rupert for
this--and off flew Tanty's mind upon another tangent. Rupert was very
deep, there could be no doubt of that; he was anxious enough to keep
Adrian away from them all; what would it be then when it came to a
question of his marriage?
Tanty, with the delightful optimism that seventy years' experience had
failed to damp, here became confident of the approach of her younger
nephew's complete discomfiture, and in the cheering contemplation of
that event chuckled so unctuously that Molly looked at her amazed.
"It is well for you, my dear," said the old lady, rising and wagging
her head with an air of enigmatic resolution, "that you have got an
aunt."
* * * * *
Some two days later, Rene, sitting upon a ledge of the old Scarthey
wall, in the spare sunshine which this still, winter's noon shone
pearl-like through a universal mist, busy mending a net, to the tune
of a melancholy, inward whistle, heard up above the licking of the
waves all around him and the whimper of the seagulls overhead, the
beat of steady oars approaching from land side.
Starting to his feet, the little man, in vague expectation, ran to a
point of vantage from which to scan the tideway; after a few seconds'
investigation he turned tail, dashed into the ruins, up the steps, and
burst open the door of the sitting-room, calling upon his master with
a scared expression of astonishment.
Captain Jack, poring over a map, his pipe sticking rakishly out of one
side of his mouth, looked up amused at the Frenchman's evident
excitement, while Adrian, who had been busy with the uppermost row of
books upon his west wall, looked down from his ladder perch, with the
pessimist's constitutional expectation of evil growing upon his face.
"One comes in a boat," ejaculated Rene, "and I thought I ought to warn
his honour, if his honour will give himself the trouble to look out."
"It must be the devil to frighten Renny in this fashion," muttered
Captain Jack as distinctly as the clench of his teeth upon the pipe
would allow him. Sir Adrian paled a little, he began to descend his
ladder, mechanically flicking the dust from his cuffs.
"Your honour," said Rene, drawing to the window and looking out
cautiously, "I have not yet seen her, but I believe it is old
miss--the aunt of your honour and these ladies."
Captain Jack's pipe fell from his dropping jaw and was broken into
many fragments as he leaped to his feet with an elasticity of limb and
a richness of expletive which of themselves would have betrayed his
calling.
Flinging his arm across one of Adrian's shoulders he peeped across the
other out of the window, with an alarm half mocking, half genuine.
"The devil it is, friend Renny," he cried, drawing back and running
his hands with an exaggerated gesture of despair through his brown
curls; "Adrian, all is lost unless you hide me."
"My aunt here, and alone," exclaimed Adrian, retreating from the
window perturbed enough himself, "I must go down to meet her. Pray God
it is no ill news! Hurry, Renny, clear these glasses away."
"In the name of all that's sacred, clear me away first!" interposed
Captain Jack, this time with a real urgency; through the open lattice
came the sound of the grating of the boat's keel upon the sand and a
vigorous hail from a masculine throat--"Ahoy, Renny Potter, ahoy!"
"Adrian, this is a matter of life and death to my hopes, hide me in
your lowest dungeon for goodness' sake; I do not know my way about
your ruins, and I am convinced the old lady will nose me out like a
badger."
There was no time for explanation; Sir Adrian made a sign to Rene, who
highly enjoying the situation and grinning from ear to ear, was
already volunteering to "well hide Mr. the Captain," and the pair
disappeared with much celerity into the inner room, while Adrian,
unable to afford himself further preparation, hurried down the great
stairs to meet this unexpected guest.
He emerged bareheaded into the curious mist which hung pall-like upon
the outer world, and seemed to combine the opposite elements of glare
and dulness, just as Tanty, aided by the stalwart arm of the boatman,
who had rowed her across, succeeded in dragging her rheumatic limbs up
the last bit of ascent to the door of the keep.
She halted, disengaged herself, and puffing and blowing surveyed her
nephew with a stony gaze.
"My dear aunt," cried Adrian, "nothing has happened, I trust?"
"Sufficient has already happened, nephew, I should _hope_," retorted
the old lady with extreme dignity, "sufficient to make me desire to
confer with you most seriously. I thank you, young man," turning to
William Shearman who stood on one side, his eager gaze upon "the
master," ready to pull his forelock so soon as he could catch his eye,
"be here again in an hour, if you please."
"But you will allow me to escort you myself," exclaimed Adrian, rising
to the situation, "and I hope there need be no hurry so long as
daylight lasts--Good-morning, Will, I am glad the new craft is a
success--you need not wait. Tanty, take my arm, I beg, the steps are
steep and rough."
Gripping her nephew's arm with her bony old woman's hand, Miss
O'Donoghue began a laborious ascent, pausing every five steps to
breathe stertorously and reproachfully, and look round upon the
sandstone walls with supreme disdain; but this was nothing to the air
with which, when at last installed upon a high hard chair, in the
sitting-room (having sternly refused the easy one Sir Adrian humbly
proffered), she deliberately proceeded to survey the scene. In truth,
the neatness that usually characterised Adrian's surroundings was
conspicuously absent from them, just then.
Two or three maps lay overlapping each other upon the table beside the
tray with its flagon of amber ale, which had formed the captain's
morning draught; and the soiled glass, the fragments of his pipe, and
its half-burnt contents lay strewn about the prostrate chair which
that lively individual had upset in his agitation. Adrian's ladder,
the books he had been handling and had not replaced, the white ash of
the dying fire, all contributed to the unwonted aspect of somewhat
melancholy disorder; worse than all, the fumes of the strong tobacco
which the sailor liked to smoke in his secluded moments hung rank,
despite the open window, upon the absolute motionlessness of the
atmosphere.
Tanty snorted and sniffed, while Adrian, after picking up the chair,
began to almost unconsciously refold the maps, his eyes fixed
wonderingly upon his visitor's face.
This latter delivered herself at length of some of the indignation
that was choking her, in abrupt disjointed sentences, as if she were
uncorking so many bottles.
"Well I'm sure, nephew, I am not surprised at your _extraordinary_
behaviour, and if this is the style you prefer to live in--style, did
I say?--sty would be more appropriate. Of course it is only what I
have been led to expect, but I must say I was ill prepared to be
treated by you with actual disrespect. My sister's child and I your
guest, not to speak of your aunt, and you your mother's son, and her
host besides! It is a slap in the face, Adrian, a slap in the face
which has been a very bitter pill to have to swallow, I assure you--I
may say without exaggeration, in fact, that it has cut me to the
quick."
"But surely," cried the nephew, laughing with gentle indulgence at
this complicated indictment, "surely you cannot suppose I would have
been willingly guilty of the smallest disrespect to you. I am a most
unfortunate man, most unfortunately situated, and if I have offended,
it is, you must believe, unwittingly and unavoidably. But you got my
letter--I made my motives clear to you."
"Oh yes, I got your letter yesterday," responded Tanty, not at all
softened, "and a more idiotic production from a man of your
attainments, allow me to remark, I never read. Adrian, you are making
a perfect fool of yourself, and _you cannot afford it_!"
"I fear you will never really understand my position," murmured Adrian
hopelessly.
Tanty rattled her large green umbrella upon the floor with a violence
that made her nephew start, then turned upon him a countenance
inflamed with righteous anger.
"It is only three days ago since I gave you fully my view of the
situation," she remarked, "you were good enough at the time to admit
that it was a remarkably well-balanced one. I should be glad if you
will explain in what manner your position could have changed in the
space of just three hours after, to lead you to rush back to your
island, really as if you were a mole or a wild Indian, or some other
strange animal that could not bear civilised society, without even so
much as a good-bye to me, or to your cousins either? What is
that?--you say you wrote--oh, ay--you wrote--to Molly as well as to
me; rigmaroles, my dear nephew, mere absurd statements that have not a
grain of truth in them, that do not hold water for an instant. You are
not made for the world forsooth, nor the world for you! and if that is
not flying in the face of your Creator, and wanting to know better
than Providence!--And then you say, 'you cast a gloom by your mere
presence.' Fiddle-de-dee! It was not much in the way of gloom that
Molly brought back with her from her three days' visit to you--or if
that is gloom--well, the more your presence casts of it the
better--that is all I can say. Ah, but you should have seen her, poor
child, after you went away in that heartless manner and you had
removed yourself and your shadow, and your precious gloom--if you
could have seen how unhappy she has been!"
"Good God!" exclaimed the man with a paling face, "what are you
saying?"
"Only the truth, sir--Molly is breaking her heart because of your base
desertion of her."
"Good God," muttered Adrian again, rose up stiffly in a sort of
horrified astonishment and then sat down again and passed his hand
over his forehead like a man striving to awaken from a painful dream.
"Oh, Adrian, don't be more of a fool than you can possibly help!"
cried his relative, exasperated beyond all expression by his
inarticulate distress. "You are so busy contemplating all sorts of
absurdities miles away that I verily believe you cannot see an inch
beyond your nose. My gracious! what is there to be so astonished at?
How did you behave to the poor innocent from the very instant she
crossed your threshold? Fact is, you have been a regular gay Lothario.
Did you not"--cried Tanty, starting again upon her fine vein of
metaphor--"did you not deliberately hold the cup of love to those
young lips only to nip it in the bud? The girl is not a stock or a
stone. You are a handsome man, Adrian, and the long and the short of
it is, those who play with fire must reap as they have sown."
Tanty, who had been holding forth with the rapidity of a loose
windmill in a hurricane, here found herself forced to pause and take
breath; which she did, fanning herself with much energy, a triumphant
consciousness of the unimpeachability of her logic written upon her
heated countenance. But Adrian still stared at her with the same
incredulous dismay; looking indeed as little like a gay Lothario as it
was possible, even for him.
"Do you mean," he said at last, in slow broken sentences, as his mind
wrestled with the strange tidings; "am I to understand that Molly,
that bright beautiful creature, has been made unhappy through me? Oh,
my dear Tanty," striving with a laugh, "the idea is too absurd, I am
old enough to be her father, you know--what evidence can you have for
a statement so distressing, so extraordinary."
"I am not quite in my dotage yet," quoth Tanty, drily; "neither am I
in the habit of making unfounded assertions, nephew. I have heard what
the girl has said with her own lips, I have read what she has written
in her diary; she has sobbed and cried over your cruelty in these very
arms--I don't know what further evidence----"
But Sir Adrian had started up again--"Molly crying, Molly crying for
me--God help us all--Cecile's child, whom I would give my life to keep
from trouble! Tanty, if this is true--it must be true since you say
so, I hardly know myself what I am saying--then I am to blame, deeply
to blame--and yet--I have not said one word to the child--did
nothing...." here he paused and a deep flush overspread his face to
the roots of his hair; "except indeed in the first moment of her
arrival--when she came in upon me as I was lost in memories of the
past--like the spirit of Cecile."
"Humph," said Tanty, pointedly, "but then you see what you took for
Cecile's spirit happened to be Molly in the flesh." She fixed her
sharp eyes upon her nephew, who, struck into confusion by her words,
seemed for the moment unable to answer. Then, as if satisfied with the
impression produced, she folded her hands over the umbrella handle and
observed in more placid tones than she had yet used:
"And now we must see what is to be done."
Adrian began to pace the room in greater perturbation.
"What is to be done?" he repeated, "alas! what can be done? Tanty, you
will believe me when I tell you that I should have cut off my right
hand rather than brought this thing upon the child--but she is very
young--the impression, thank heaven, cannot in the nature of things
endure. She will meet some one worthy of her--with you, Tanty, kindest
of hearts, I can safely trust her future. But that she should suffer
now, and through me, that bright creature who flitted in upon my dark
life, like some heaven-sent messenger--these are evil tidings. Tanty,
you must take her away, you must distract her mind, you must tell her
what a poor broken-down being I am, how little worthy of her sweet
thoughts, and she will learn, soon learn, to forget me, to laugh at
herself."
Although addressing the old lady, he spoke like a man reasoning with
himself, and the words dropped from his lips as if drawn from a very
well of bitterness. Tanty listened to him in silence, but the tension
of her whole frame betrayed that she was only gathering her forces for
another explosion.
When Adrian's voice ceased there was a moment's silence and then the
storm burst; whisking herself out of her chair, the umbrella came
into play once more. But though it was only to thump the table, it was
evident Miss O'Donoghue would more willingly have laid it about the
delinquent's shoulders.
"Adrian, are you a man at all?" she ejaculated fiercely. Then with
sudden deadly composure: "So _this_ is the reparation you propose to
make for the mischief you have wrought?"
"In God's name!" cried he, goaded at length into some sort of
despairing anger himself, "what would you have me do?"
The answer came with the promptitude of a return shot:
"Do? why marry her, of course!"
"_Marry her!_"
There was a breathless pause. Tanty, leaning forward across the table,
crimson, agitated, yet triumphant; Adrian's white face blasted with
astonishment. "Marry her," he echoed at length once more, in a whisper
this time. Then with a groan: "This is madness!"
Miss O'Donoghue caught him up briskly. "Madness? My good fellow, not a
bit of it; on the contrary, sanity, happiness, prosperity.--Adrian,
don't stand staring at me like a stuck pig! Why, in the name of
conscience, should not you marry? You are a young man still--pooh,
pooh, what is forty!--you are a very fine-looking man, clever,
romantic--hear me out, sir, please--_and you have made the child love
you_. There you are again, as if you had a pain in your stomach; you
would try the patience of Job! Why, I don't believe there is another
man on earth that would not be wild with joy at the mere thought of
having gained such a prize. A beautiful creature, with a heart of gold
and a purse of gold to boot."
"Oh, heavens, aunt!" interrupted the man, passionately, "leave that
question out of the reckoning. The one thing, the only thing, to
consider is _her_ happiness. You cannot make me believe it can be for
her happiness that she should marry such as me."
"And why shouldn't it be for her happiness?" answered the dauntless
old lady. "Was not she happy enough with you here in this God-forsaken
hole, with nothing but the tempest besides for company? Why should not
she be happy, then, when you come back to your own good place? Would
not you be _kind_ to her?--would not you cherish her if she were your
wife?"
"Would I not be kind to her?--would I not cherish her?--would I
not----? My God!"
"Why, Adrian," cried Tanty, charmed at this unexpected disclosure of
feeling and the accent with which it was delivered, "I declare you are
as much in love with the girl as she is with you. Why, now you shall
just come back with me to Pulwick this moment, and she shall tell you
herself if she can find happiness with you or not. Oh--I will hear no
more--your own heart, your feelings as a gentleman, as a man of
honour, all point, my dear nephew, in the same direction. And if you
neglect this warning voice you will be blind indeed to the call of
duty. Come now, come back to your home, where the sweetest wife ever a
man had awaits you. And when I shall see the children spring up around
you, Adrian, then God will have granted my last wish, and I shall die
in peace.... There, there, I am an old fool, but when the heart is
over full, then the tears fall. Come, Adrian, come, I'll say no more;
but the sight of the poor child who loves you shall plead for her
happiness and yours. And hark, a word in your ear: let Rupert bark and
snarl as he will! And what sort of a devil is it your generosity has
made of _him_? You have done a bad day's work there all these years,
but, please God, there are better times dawning for us all.--What are
you doing, Adrian? Oh! writing a few orders to your servant to explain
your departure with me--quite right, quite right, I won't speak a word
then to interrupt you. Dear me! I really feel quite in spirits. Once
dear Molly and you settled, there will be a happy home for Madeleine:
with you, we can look out a suitable husband for her. Well, well, I
must not go too fast yet, I suppose: but I have not told you in what
deep anxiety I have been on _her_ account by reason of a most
deplorable affair--a foolish girl's fancy only, of course, with a most
undesirable and objectionable creature called _Smith_.... Oh! you are
ready, are you?--My dear Adrian, give me your arm then, and let us
proceed."
* * * * *
Silence had reigned for but a few seconds in the great room of the
keep when Captain Jack re-entered, bearing on his face an expression
at once boyishly jubilant and mockingly astonished. He planted
himself in front of the landward window, and gazed forth a while.
"There goes my old Adrian, as dutifully escorting that walking
sack of bones, that tar-barrel ornament--never mind, old lady,
from this moment I shall love you for your brave deeds of this
morning--escorting his worthy aunt as dutifully as though he were a
penniless nephew.... Gently over the gunnel, madam! That's done! So
you are going to take my gig? Right, Adrian. Dear me, how she holds
forth! I fancy I hear her from here.--Give way, my lads! That's all
right. Gad! Old Adrian's carried off on a regular journey to Cythera,
under a proper escort!"
With this odd reminiscence of early mythological reading, the sailor
burst into a loud laugh and walked about slapping his leg.
"Would ever any one have guessed anything approaching this?
Star-gazing, book-grubbing Sir Adrian ... in love! Adrian the
solitary, the pessimist, the I-don't-know-what superior man, in love!
Neither more nor less! In love, like an every-day inhabitant of these
realms, and with that black-eyed sister of mine that is to be! My
word, it's too perfect! Adrian my brother-in-law--for if I gauge that
fine creature properly--splendid old lady--she won't let him slide
back this time. No, my dear Adrian, you are hooked for matrimony and a
return to the living world. That black-eyed jade too, that Molly
sister of my Madeleine, will wake up and lead you a life, by
George!... Row on, my lads," once more looking at the diminishing
black spot upon the grey waters. "Row on--you have never done a better
day's work!"
Rene, entering a few moments later, with an open note in his hand,
found his master's friend still chuckling, and looked at him
inquisitively.
"His honour has returned to Pulwick," said he, in puzzled tones,
handing the missive.
"Ay, lad," answered the sailor, cheerily. "The fact is, my good Renny,
that in that room of Sir Adrian's where you ensconced me for safety
from that most wonderful specimen of her sex (I refer to your master's
worthy aunt), it was impossible to avoid overhearing many of her
remarks--magnificent voice for a storm at sea, eh? Never mind what it
was all about, my good man; what I heard was good news. Ah!"
directing his attention to the note; "his honour does not say when he
will return, but will send back the gig immediately; and you, M.
Potter, are to look after me for as long as I choose to stop here."
Rene required no reflection to realise that anything in the shape of
good news which took his master back to his estate must be good news
indeed; and his broad face promptly mirrored, in the broadest of
grins, the captain's own satisfaction.
"For sure, we will try to take care of M. the captain, as well as if
his honour himself was present. He told me you were to be master
here."
"Make it so. I should like some dinner as soon as possible, and one of
my bro----of Sir Adrian's best bottles. It's a poor heart that never
rejoices. Meanwhile, I want to inspect your ruins and your caves in
detail, if you will pilot me, Renny. This is a handy sort of an old
Robinson Crusoe place for hiding and storing, is it not?"