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MOLLY BAWN
By
THE DUCHESS
(Margaret Wolfe Hamilton)
Author of "Phylis," "Airy Fairy Lilian," "Portia," Etc,. Etc.
NEW YORK
HURST AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents was not printed in this book.
It has been created for the convenience of the reader.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER II. CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER III. CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER V. CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XVI. CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XVII. CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XVIII. CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XIX. CHAPTER XXXVIII.
MOLLY BAWN.
CHAPTER I.
"On hospitable thoughts intent."
"Positively he is coming!" says Mr. Massereene, with an air of the most
profound astonishment.
"_Who?_" asks Molly, curiously, pausing with her toast in mid-air (they
are at breakfast), and with her lovely eyes twice their usual goodly
size. Her lips, too, are apart; but whether in anticipation of the news
or of the toast, it would be difficult to decide. "Is any one coming
here?"
"Even here. This letter"--regarding, with a stricken conscience, the
elegant scrawl in his hand--"is from Tedcastle George Luttrell (he is
evidently proud of his name), declaring himself not only ready but
fatally willing to accept my invitation to spend a month with me."
"A month!" says Molly, amazed. "And you never said a word about it,
John."
"A month!" says Letitia, dismayed. "What on earth, John, is any one to
do with any one for a month down here?"
"I wish I knew," replies Mr. Massereene, getting more and more stricken
as he notices his wife's dejection, and gazing at Molly as though for
inspiration. "What evil genius possessed me that I didn't say a
fortnight? But, to tell you the honest truth, Letty, it never occurred
to me that he might come."
"Then why did you ask him?" says Letitia, as sharply as is possible for
her. "When writing, you might have anticipated so much: people generally
do."
"Do they?" says Mr. Massereene, with an irrepressible glance at Molly.
"Then you must only put me down as an exception to the general rule. I
thought it only civil to ask him, but I certainly never believed he
would be rash enough to go in for voluntary exile. I should have
remembered how unthinking he always was."
"But who is he?" asks Molly, impatiently, full of keen and pleasurable
excitement. "I die of vulgar curiosity. What is he like? Is he young,
handsome? Oh, John, _do_ say he is young and good-looking."
"He was at school with me."
"Oh!" groans Molly.
"Does that groan proceed from a conviction that I am in the last stage
of decay?" demands Mr. Massereene. "Anything so rude as you, Molly, has
not as yet been rivaled. However, I am at a disadvantage: so I forgive,
and will proceed. Though at school with me, he is at least nine years my
junior, and can't be more than twenty-seven."
"Ah!" says Molly. To an Irish girl alone is given the power to express
these two exclamations with proper effect.
"He is a hussar, of a good family, sufficiently good looks, and, I
think, no fortune," says Mr. Massereene, as though reading from a
doubtful guide-book.
"How delightful!" says Molly.
"How terrific!" sighs Letitia. "Fancy a hussar finding amusement in
lambs, and cows, and fat pigs, and green fields!"
"'Green fields and pastures new,'" quotes Mr. Massereene. "He will have
them in abundance. He ought to be happy, as they say there is a charm in
variety."
"Perhaps he will find some amusement in me," suggests Molly, modestly.
"Can it be possible that he is really coming? Oh, the glory of having a
young man to talk to, and that young man a soldier! Letitia," to her
sister-in-law, "I warn you it will be no use for you to look shocked,
because I have finally made up my mind to flirt every day, and all day
long, with Tedcastle George Luttrell."
"Shocked!" says Letitia, gravely. "I would be a great deal more shocked
if you had said you wouldn't; for what I should do with him, if you
refused to take him in hand, is a thing on which I shudder to speculate.
John is forever doing questionable things, and repenting when it is too
late. Unless he means to build a new wing--" with a mild attempt at
sarcasm,--"I don't know where Mr. Luttrell is to sleep."
"I fear I would not have time," says Massereene, meekly; "the walls
would scarcely be dry, as he is coming--the day after to-morrow."
"Not until then?" says Letitia, ominously calm. "Why did you not make it
to-day? That would have utterly precluded the possibility of my getting
things into any sort of order."
"Letitia, if you continue to address me in your present heartless style
for one minute longer, I shall burst into tears," says Mr. Massereene.
And then they all laugh.
"He shall have my room," says Molly, presently, seeing that perplexity
still adorns Letitia's brows, "and I can have Lovat's."
"Oh, Molly, I will not have you turned out of your room for any one,"
says Letitia; but she says it faintly, and is conscious of a feeling of
relief at her heart as she speaks.
"But indeed he shall. It is such a pretty room that he cannot fail to be
impressed. Any one coming from a hot city, and proving insensible to the
charms of the roses that are now creeping into my window, would be unfit
to live. Even a hussar must have a soft spot somewhere. I foresee those
roses will be the means of reducing him to a lamb-like meekness."
"You are too good, Molly. It seems a shame," says Letitia, patting her
sister-in-law's hand, and still hesitating, through a sense of duty;
"does it not, John?"
"It is so difficult to know what a woman really means by the word,
'shame,'" replies John, absently, being deep in the morning's paper.
"You said it was a shame yesterday when the cat drank all the cream; and
Molly said it was a shame when Wyndham ran away with Crofton's wife."
"Don't take any notice of him, Letty," says Molly, with a scornful shrug
of her pretty shoulders, turning her back on her brother, and resuming
the all-important subject of the expected visitor.
"Another railway accident, and twenty men killed," says Mr. Massereene,
in a few minutes, looking up from his _Times_, and adopting the
lugubrious tone one always assumes on such occasions, whether one cares
or not.
"Wasn't it fortunate we put up those curtains clean last week?" murmurs
Letitia, in a slow, self-congratulatory voice.
"More than fortunate," says Molly.
"_Twenty_ men killed, Letty!" repeats Mr. Massereene, solemnly.
"I don't believe there is a spare bath in the house," exclaims Letitia,
again sinking into the lowest depth of despair.
"You forget the old one in the nursery. It will do for the children very
well, and he can have the new one," says Molly.
"Twenty men _killed_, Molly!" reiterates Mr. Massereene, a faint gleam
of surprised disgust creeping into his eyes.
"So it will, dear. Molly, you are an immense comfort. What did you say,
John? Twenty men killed? _Dreadful!_ I wonder, Molly, if I might suggest
to him that I would not like him to smoke in bed? I hear a great many
young men have that habit; indeed, a brother of mine, years ago, at
home, nearly set the house on fire one night with a cigar."
"Let me do all the lecturing," says Molly, gayly; "there is nothing I
should like better."
"Talk of ministering angels, indeed!" mutters Mr. Massereene, rising,
and making for the door, paper and all. "I don't believe they would care
if England was swamped, so long as they had clean curtains for
Luttrell's bed."