"A lovely lady, garmented in light
From her own beauty."
--Shelley.
The day that is to bring them Luttrell has dawned, deepened, burst into
perfect beauty, and now holds out its arms to the restful evening. A
glorious sunny evening as yet, full of its lingering youth, with scarce
a hint of the noon's decay. The little yellow sunbeams, richer perhaps
in tint than they were two hours agone, still play their games of
hide-and-seek and bo-peep among the roses that climb and spread
themselves in all their creamy, rosy, snowy loveliness over the long,
low house where live the Massereenes, and breathe forth scented kisses
to the wooing wind.
A straggling house is Brooklyn, larger, at the first glance, than it in
reality is, and distinctly comfortable, yet with its comfort, a thing
very far apart from luxury, and with none of the sleepiness of an
over-rich prosperity about it. In spite of the late June sun, there is a
general air of life, a tremulous merriment, everywhere: the voices of
the children, a certain laugh that rings like far-off music, the cooing
of the pigeons beneath the eaves, the cluck-cluck of the silly fowls in
the farm-yard,--all mingle to defy the creeping sense of laziness that
the day generates.
"It is late," says Mr. Massereene to himself, examining his watch for
the fifteenth time as he saunters in a purposeless fashion up and down
before the hall door. There is a suppressed sense of expectancy both in
his manner and in the surroundings. The gravel has been newly raked, and
gleams white and untrodden. The borders of the lawn that join on to it
have been freshly clipped. A post in the railings, that for three weeks
previously has been tottering to its fall, has been securely propped,
and now stands firm and uncompromising as its fellows.
"It is almost seven," says Letitia, showing her fresh, handsome face at
the drawing-room window. "Do you think he will be here for dinner,
John?"
"I am incapable of thought," says John. "I find that when a man who is
in the habit of dining at six is left without his dinner until seven he
grows morose. It is a humiliating discovery. Surely the stomach should
be subservient to the mind; but it isn't. Letitia, like a good girl, do
say you have ordered up the soup."
"But, my dear John, had we not better wait a little longer?"
"My dear Letitia, most certainly not, unless you wish to raise a storm
impossible to quell. At present I feel myself in a mood that a very
little more waiting will render ferocious. Besides,"--seeing his wife
slightly uneasy,--"as he did not turn up about six, he cannot by any
possibility be here until half-past eight."
"And I took such trouble with that dinner!" says Letitia, with a sigh.
"I am more glad to hear it than I can tell you," says her husband,
briskly. "Take my word for it, Letty, your trouble won't go for
nothing."
"_Gourmand!_" says Letitia, with the smile she reserves alone for him.
* * * * *
Eight,--half-past eight--nine.
"I don't believe he is coming at all," says Molly, pettishly, coming out
from the curtains of the window, and advancing straight into the middle
of the room.
Under the chandelier, that has been so effectively touched up for this
recreant knight, she stands bathed in the soft light of the many candles
that beam down with mild kindliness upon her. It seems as though they
love to rest upon her,--to add yet one more charm, if it may be, to the
sweet, graceful figure, the half-angry, wholly charming attitude, the
tender, lovable, fresh young face.
Her eyes, large, dark, and blue,--true Irish eyes, that bespeak her
father's race,--shine with a steady clearness. They do not sparkle, they
are hardly brilliant; they look forth at one with an expression so soft,
so earnest, yet withal so merry, as would make one stake their all on
the sure fact that the heart within her must be golden.
Her nut-brown hair, drawn back from her low brow into a loose coil
behind, is enriched here and there with little sunny tresses, while
across her forehead a few wavy locks--veritable love-locks, in Molly's
case--wander idly, not as of a set purpose, but rather as though they
have there drifted of their own gay will.
Upon her cheeks no roses lie,--unless they be the very creamiest roses
that ever eye beheld. She is absolutely without color until such
occasions rise as when grief or gladness touch her and dye her lovely
skin with their red glow.
But it is her mouth--at once her betrayer and her chief charm--that one
loves. In among its many curves lies all her wickedness,--the beautiful
mouth, so full of mockery, laughter, fun, a certain decision, and
tenderness unspeakable.
She smiles, and all her face is as one perfect sunbeam. Surely never has
she looked so lovely. The smile dies, her lips close, a pensive
sweetness creeps around them, and one terms one's self a fatuous fool to
have deemed her at her best a moment since; and so on through all the
many changes that only serve to show how countless is her store of
hidden charms.
She is slender, but not lean, round, yet certainly not full, and of a
middle height. For herself, she is impulsive; a little too quick at
times, fond of life and laughter, as all youth should be, while perhaps
(that I should live to say it!) down deep within her, somewhere, there
hides, but half suppressed and ever ready to assert itself, a wayward,
turbulent vein that must be termed coquetry.
Now, at this instant the little petulant frown, born of "hope deferred,"
that puckers up her forehead has fallen into her eyes, notwithstanding
the jealous guard of the long curling lashes, and, looking out defiantly
from thence, gives her all the appearance of a beloved but angry child
fretting at the delay of some coveted toy.
"I don't believe he is coming _at all_," she says, again, with increased
emphasis, having received no answer to her first assertion, Letitia
being absorbed in a devout prayer that her words may come true, while
John is disgracefully drowsy. "Oh, fancy the time I have wasted over my
appearance, and all for nothing! I won't be able to get up the enthusiasm
a second time: I feel that. How I hate young men,--young men in the army
especially! They are so selfish and so good-for-nothing, with no thought
for any one on earth but Number One. Give me a respectable, middle-aged
squire, with no aspirations beyond South-downs and Early York."
"Poor Molly Bawn!" says John, rousing himself to meet the exigencies of
the moment. "'I deeply sympathize.' And just when you are looking so
nice, too: isn't she, Letty? I vow and protest, that young man deserves
nothing less than extinction."
"I wish I had the extinguishing of him," says Molly, viciously. Then,
laughing a little, and clasping her hands loosely behind her back, she
walks to a mirror, the better to admire the long white trailing robe,
the faultless face, the red rose dying on her breast. "And just when I
had taken such pains with my hair!" she says, making a faint grimace at
her own vanity. "John, as there is no one else to admire me, do say
(whether you think it or not) I am the prettiest person you ever saw."
"I wouldn't even hesitate over such a simple lie as that," says John;
"only--Letty is in the room: consider her feelings."
"A quarter to nine. I really think he can't be coming now," breaks in
Letitia, hopefully.
"Coming or not coming, I shan't remain in for him an instant longer this
delicious night," says Molly, walking toward the open window, under
which runs a balcony, and gazing out into the still, calm moonlight. "He
is probably not aware of my existence; so that even if he does come he
will not take my absence in bad part; and if he does, so much the
better. Even in such a poor revenge there is a sweetness."
"Molly," apprehensively, "the dew is falling."
"I hope so," answers Molly, with a smile, stepping out into the cool,
refreshing dark.
Down the wooden steps, along the gravel path, into the land of dreaming
flowers she goes. Pale moonbeams light her way as, with her gown
uplifted, she wanders from bed to bed, and with a dainty greediness
drinks in the honeyed breathings round her. Here now she stoops to lift
with gentle touch a drooping head, lest in its slumber some defiling
earth come near it; and here she stands to mark a spider's net,
brilliant with dews from heaven. A crafty thing to have so fair a
home!--And here she sighs.
"Well, if he doesn't come, what matters it? A stranger cannot claim
regret. And yet what fun it would have been! what fun! (Poor lily, what
evil chance came by you to break your stem and lay your white head
there?) Perhaps--who knows?--he might be the stupidest mortal that ever
dared to live, and then--yet not so stupid as the walls, and trees, and
shrubs, while he can own a tongue to answer back. Ah! wretched slug,
would you devour my tender opening leaves? Ugh! I cannot touch the slimy
thing. Where _has_ my trowel gone? I wish my ears had never heard his
name,--Luttrell; a pretty name, too; but we all know how little is in
_that_. I feel absurdly disappointed; and why? Because it is decreed
that a man I never have known I never shall know. I doubt my brain is
softening. But why has my tent been pitched in such a lonely spot? And
why did he say he'd come? And why did John tell me he was good to look
at, and, oh! that best of all things--_young_?"
A sound,--a step,--the vague certainty of a presence near. And Molly,
turning, finds herself but a few yards distant from the expected guest.
The fates have been kind!
A tall young man, slight and clean-limbed, with a well-shaped head so
closely shaven as to suggest a Newgate barber; a long fair moustache, a
long nose, a rather large mouth, luminous azure eyes, and a complexion
the sun has vainly tried to brown, reducing it merely to a deeper
flesh-tint. On the whole, it is a very desirable face that Mr. Luttrell
owns; and so Molly decides in her first swift glance of pleased
surprise. Yes, the fates have been more than kind.
As for Luttrell himself, he is standing quite still, in the middle of
the garden-path, staring at this living Flora. Inside not a word has
been said about her, no mention of her name had fallen ever so lightly
into the conversation. He had made his excuses, had received a hearty
welcome; both he and Massereene had declared themselves convinced that
not a day had gone over the head of either since last they parted. He
had bidden Mrs. Massereene good-night, and had come out here to smoke a
cigar in quietude, all without suspicion that the house might yet
contain another lovelier inmate. Is this her favorite hour for rambling?
Is she a spirit? Or a lunatic? Yes, that must be it.
Meanwhile through the moonlight--in it--comes Molly, very slowly, a
perfect creature, in trailing, snowy robes. Luttrell, forgetting the
inevitable cigar,--a great concession,--stands mutely regarding her as,
with warm parted lips and a smile, half amused, half wondering, she
gazes back at him.
"Even a plain woman may gain beauty from a moonbeam; what, then, must a
lovely woman seem when clothed in its pure rays?"
"You are welcome,--very welcome," says Molly, at length, in her low,
soft voice.
"Thank you," returns he, mechanically, still lost in conjecture.
"I am not a fairy, nor a spirit, nor yet a vision," murmurs Molly, now
openly amused. "Have no fear. See," holding out to him a slim cool hand;
"touch me, and be convinced, I am only Molly Massereene."
He takes the hand and holds it closely, still entranced. Already--even
though three minutes have scarcely marked their acquaintance--he is
dimly conscious that there might possibly be worse things in this world
than a perpetual near-to "only Molly Massereene."
"So you did come," she goes on, withdrawing her fingers slowly but
positively, and with a faint uplifting of her straight brows, "after
all. I was so afraid you _wouldn't_, you were so long. John--we _all_
thought you had thrown us over."
To have Beauty declare herself overjoyed at the mere fact of your
presence is, under any circumstances, intoxicating. To have such an
avowal made beneath the romantic light of a summer moon is maddening.
"You _cared_?" says Luttrell, in hopeful doubt.
"Cared!" with a low gay laugh. "I should think I did care. I quite
_longed_ for you to come. If you only knew as well as I do the terrible,
never-ending dullness of this place, you would understand how one could
long for the coming of _any one_."
Try as he will, he cannot convince himself that the termination of this
sentence is as satisfactory as its commencement.
"When the evening wore on," with a little depressed shake of her head,
"and still you made no sign, and I began to feel sure it was all too
good to be true, and that you were about to disappoint me and plead some
hateful excuse by the morning post, I almost hated you, and was never in
such a rage in my life. But," again holding out her hand to him, with a
charming smile "I forgive you now."
"Then forgive me one thing more,--my ignorance," says Luttrell, retaining
the fingers this time with much increased firmness. "And tell me who you
are."
"Don't you know, really? You never heard of me from John or---- What a
fall to my pride, and when in my secret heart I had almost flattered
myself that----"
"What?" eagerly.
"Oh, nothing--only---- By the bye, now you have confessed yourself
ignorant of my existence, what _did_ bring you down to this
uninteresting village?" All this with the most perfect _naivete_.
"A desire," says Luttrell, smiling in spite of himself, "to see again
your--what shall I say?"--hesitating--"father?"
"Nonsense," says Molly, quickly, with a little frown. "How could you
think John my father? When he looks so young, too. I hope you are not
stupid: we shall never get on if you are. How could he be my father?"
"How could he be your brother?"
"Step-brother, then," says Molly, unwillingly. "I will acknowledge it
for this once only. But never again, mind, as he is dearer to me than
half a dozen real brothers. You like him very much, don't you?"
examining him anxiously. "You must, to take the trouble to come all the
way down here to see him."
"I do, indeed, more than I can say," replies the young man, with wise
heartiness that is yet unfeigned. "He has stood to me too often in the
old school-days to allow of my ever forgetting him. I would go farther
than Morley to meet him, after a lengthened absence such as mine has
been."
"India?" suggests Molly, blandly.
"Yes." Here they both pause, and Molly's eyes fall on her imprisoned
hand. She is so evidently bent on being again ungenerous that Luttrell
forces himself to break silence, with the mean object of distracting
her thoughts.
"Is it at this hour you usually 'take your walks abroad?'" he asks,
smoothly.
"Oh, no," laughing; "you must not think that. To-night there was an
excuse for me. And if there is blame in the matter, you must take it.
But for your slothfulness, your tardiness, your unpardonable laziness,"
spitefully, "my temper would not have driven me forth."
"But," reproachfully, "you do not ask the cause of my delay. How would
you like to be first inveigled into taking a rickety vehicle in the
last stage of dissipation and then deposited by that vehicle, without
an instant's warning, upon your mother earth? For my part, I didn't
like it at all."
"I'm so sorry," says Molly, sweetly. "Did all that really happen to
you, and just while I was abusing you with all my might and main? I
think I shall have to be very good to you to make up for it."
"I think so too," says Luttrell, gravely. "My ignominious breakdown was
nothing in comparison with a harsh word thrown at me by you. I feel a
deep sense of injury upon me."
"It all comes of our being in what the papers call 'poor circumstances,'"
says Molly, lightly. "Now, when I marry and you come to see me, I shall
send a carriage and a spirited pair of grays to meet you at the station.
Think of that."
"I won't," says Luttrell; "because I don't believe I would care to see
you at all when--you are married." Here, with a rashness unworthy of
him, he presses, ever so gently, the slender fingers within his own.
Instantly Miss Massereene, with a marked ignoring of the suggestion in
his last speech, returns to her forgotten charge.
"I don't want to inconvenience you," she says, demurely, with downcast
lids, "but when you have quite done with my hand I think I should like
it again. You see it is awkward being without it, as it is the right
one."
"I'm not proud," says Luttrell, modestly. "I will try to make myself
content if you will give me the left one."
At this they both laugh merrily; and, believe me, when two people so
laugh together, there is very little ice left to be broken.
"And are you really glad I have come?" says Luttrell, bending, the
better to see into her pretty face. "It sounds so unlikely."
"When one is starving, even dry bread is acceptable," returns Molly,
with a swift but cruel glance.
"I refuse to understand you. You surely do not mean----"
"I mean this, that you are not to lay too much stress on the fact of my
having said----"
"Well, Luttrell, where are you, old fellow? I suppose you thought you
were quite forgotten. Couldn't come a moment sooner,--what with
Letitia's comments on your general appearance and my own comments on my
tobacco's disappearance. However, here I am at last. Have you been
lonely?"
"Not very," says Mr. Luttrell, _sotto voce_, his eyes fixed on
Molly.
"It is John," whispers that young lady mysteriously. "Won't I catch it
if he finds me out here so late without a shawl? I must _run_.
Good-night,"--she moves away from him quickly, but before many steps
have separated them turns again, and, with her fingers on her lips,
breathes softly, kindly--"until to-morrow." After which she waves him a
last faint adieu and disappears.