HOW MONA BETRAYS WHAT MAKES GEOFFREY JEALOUS, AND HOW AN APPOINTMENT IS
MADE THAT IS ALL MOON-SHINE.
"Yes, it certainly is a charm," says Geoffrey slowly "but it puzzles me.
I cannot be gay one moment and sad the next. Tell me how you manage it."
"I can't, because I don't know myself. It is my nature. However
depressed I may feel at one instant, the next a passing thought may
change my tears into a laugh. Perhaps that is why we are called fickle;
yet it has nothing to do with it: it is a mere peculiarity of
temperament, and a rather merciful gift, for which we should be
grateful, because, though we return again to our troubles, still the
moment or two of forgetfulness soothes us and nerves us for the
conflict. I speak, of course, of only minor sorrows; such a grief as
poor Kitty's admits of no alleviation. It will last for her lifetime."
"Will it?" says Geoffrey, oddly.
"Yes. One can understand that," replies she, gravely, not heeding the
closeness of his regard. "Many things affect me curiously," she goes on,
dreamily,--"sad pictures and poetry and the sound of sweet music."
"Do you sing?" asks he, through mere force of habit, as she pauses.
"Yes."
The answer is so downright, so unlike the usual "a little," or "oh,
nothing to signify," or "just when there is nobody else," and so on,
that Geoffrey is rather taken back.
"I am not a musician," she goes on, evenly, "but some people admire my
singing very much. In Dublin they liked to hear me, when I was with Aunt
Anastasia; and you know a Dublin audience is very critical."
"But you have no piano?"
"Yes I have: aunty gave me hers when I was leaving town. It was no use
to her and I loved it. I was at school in Portarlington for nearly three
years, and when I came back from it I didn't care for Anastasia's
friends, and found my only comfort in my music. I am telling you
everything am I not," with a wistful smile, "and perhaps I weary you?"
"Weary me! no, indeed. That is one of the very few unkind things you
have ever said to me. How could I weary of your voice? Go on; tell me
where you keep this magical piano."
"In my own room. You have not seen that yet. But it belongs to myself
alone, and I call it my den, because in it I keep everything that I hold
most precious. Some time I will show it to you."
"Show it to me to-day," says he, with interest.
"Very well, if you wish."
"And you will sing me something?"
"If you like. Are you fond of singing!"
"Very. But for myself I have no voice worth hearing. I sing, you know, a
little, which is my misfortune, not my fault; don't you think so?"
"Oh, no; because if you can sing at all--that is correctly, and without
false notes--you must feel music and love it."
"Well for my part I hate people who sing a little. I always wish it was
even less. I hold that they are a social nuisance, and ought to be put
down by law. My eldest brother Nick sings really very well,--a charming
tenor, you know, good enough to coax the birds off the bushes. He does
all that sort of _dilettante_ business,--paints, and reads tremendously
about things dead and gone, that can't possibly advantage anybody.
Understands old china as well as most people (which isn't saying much),
and I think--but as yet this statement is unsupported--I think he writes
poetry."
"Does he really?" asks Mona, with eyes wide open. "I am sure if I ever
meet your brother Nick I shall be dreadfully afraid of him."
"Don't betray me, at all events. He is a touchy sort of fellow, and
mightn't like to think I knew that about him. Jack, my second brother,
sings too. He is coming home from India directly, and is an awfully good
sort, though I think I should rather have old Nick after all."
"You have two brothers older than you?" asks Mona, meditatively.
"Yes; I am that most despicable of all things, a third son."
"I have heard of it. A third son would be poor, of course, and--and
worldly people would not think so much of him as of others. Is that so?"
She pauses. But for the absurdity of the thing, Mr. Rodney would swear
there is hope in her tone.
"Your description is graphic," he answers, lightly, "if faintly unkind;
but when is the truth civil? You are right. Younger sons, as a rule, are
not run after. Mammas do not hanker after them, or give them their
reserve smiles, or pull their skirts aside to make room for them upon
small ottomans."
"That betrays the meanness of the world," says Mona, slowly and with
indignation. "Has not Geoffrey just declared himself to be a younger
son?"
"Does it? I was bred in a different belief. In my world the mighty do no
wrong; and a third son is nowhere. He is shunted; handed on; if
possible, scotched. The sun is not made for _him_, or the first waltz,
or caviare, or the 'sweet shady side' of anything. In fact, he 'is the
man of no account' with a vengeance!"
"What a shame!" says Mona, angrily. Then she changes her note, and says,
with a soft, low, mocking laugh, "How I pity you!"
"Thanks. I shall try to believe you, though your mirth is somewhat out
of place, and has a tendency towards heartlessness." (He is laughing
too.) "Yet there have been instances," goes on Mr. Rodney, still
smiling, while watching her intently, "when maiden aunts have taken a
fancy to third sons, and have died leaving them lots of tin."
"Eh?" says Mona.
"Tin,--money," explains he.
"Oh, I dare say. Yes, sometimes: but--" she hesitates, and this time the
expression of her face cannot be misunderstood: dejection betrays itself
in every line--"but it is not so with you, is it? No aunt has left you
anything?"
"No,--no aunt," returns Rodney, speaking the solemn truth, yet conveying
a lie: "I have not been blessed with maiden aunts wallowing in coin."
"So I thought," exclaims Mona, with a cheerful nod, that under other
circumstances should be aggravating, so full of content it is. "At first
I fea--I thought you were rich, but afterwards I guessed it was your
brothers' ground you were shooting over. And Bridget told me, too. She
said you could not be well off, you had so many brothers. But I like you
all the better for that," says Mona, in a tone that actually savors of
protection, slipping her little brown hand through his arm in a kindly,
friendly, lovable fashion.
"Do you?" says Rodney. He is strangely moved; he speaks quietly, but his
heart is beating quickly, and Cupid's dart sinks deeper in its wound.
"Is your brother, Mr. Rodney, like you?" asks Mona presently.
He has never told her that his eldest brother is a baronet. Why he
hardly knows, yet now he does not contradict her when she alludes to him
as Mr. Rodney. Some inward feeling prevents him. Perhaps he understands
instinctively that such knowledge will but widen the breach that already
exists between him and the girl who now walks beside him with a happy
smile upon her flower-like face.
"No; he is not like me," he says, abruptly: "he is a much better fellow.
He is, besides, tall and rather lanky, with dark eyes and hair. He is
like my father, they tell me; I am like my mother."
At this Mona turns her gaze secretly upon him. She studies his hair, his
gray eyes, his irregular nose,--that ought to have known better,--and
his handsome mouth, so resolute, yet so tender, that his fair moustache
only half conceals. The world in general acknowledges Mr. Rodney to be a
well-looking young man of ordinary merits, but in Mona's eyes he is
something more than all this; and I believe the word "ordinary," as
applied to him, would sound offensive in her ears.
"I think I should like your mother," she says, naively and very sweetly,
lifting her eyes steadily to his. "She is handsome, of course; and is
she good as she is beautiful?"
Flattery goes a long way with most men, but in this instance the subtle
poison touches Mr. Rodney even more than it pleases him. He presses the
hand that rests upon his arm an eighth of an inch nearer to his heart
than it was before, if that be possible.
"My mother is a real good sort when you know her," he says, evasively;
"but she's rather rough on strangers. However, she is always all there,
you know, so far as manners go, and that."
Miss Mona looks puzzled.
"I don't think I understand you," she says, at length, gravely. "Where
would the rest of her be, if she wasn't all in the same place?"
She says this in such perfect good faith that Mr. Rodney roars with
laughter.
"Perhaps you may not know it," says he, "but you are simply perfection!"
"So Mr. Moore says," returns she, smiling.
Had she put out all her powers of invention with a view to routing him
with slaughter, she could not have been more successful than she is with
this small unpremeditated speech. Had a thunderbolt fallen at his feet,
he could not have betrayed more thorough and complete discomfiture.
He drops her arm, and looks as though he is prepared to drop her
acquaintance also, at a moment's notice.
"What has Mr. Moore to do with you?" he asks, haughtily. "Who is he,
that he should so speak to you?"
"He is our landlord," says Mona, calmly, but with uplifted brows,
stopping short in the middle of the road to regard him with
astonishment.
"And thinks you perfection?" in an impossible tone, losing both his head
and his temper completely. "He is rich, I suppose; why don't you marry
him?"
Mona turns pale.
"To ask the question is a rudeness," she says, steadily, though her
heart is cold and hurt. "Yet I will answer you. In our country, and in
our class," with an amount of inborn pride impossible to translate, "we
do not marry a man because he is 'rich,' or in other words, sell
ourselves for gold."
Having said this, she turns her back upon him contemptuously, and walks
towards her home.
He follows her, full of remorse and contrition. Her glance, even more
than her words, has covered him with shame, and cured him of his want of
generosity.
"Forgive me, Mona," he says, with deep entreaty. "I confess my fault.
How could I speak to you as I did! I implore your pardon. Great sinner
as I am, surely I shall not knock for forgiveness at your sweet heart in
vain!"
"Do not ever speak to me like that again," says Mona, turning upon him
eyes humid with disappointment, yet free from wrath of any kind. "As for
Mr. Moore," with a curl of her short upper lip that it does him good to
see, and a quick frown, "why, he is as old as the hills, and as fat as
Tichborne, and he hasn't got a single hair on his head!"
But that Mr. Rodney is still oppressed with the fear that he has
mortally offended her, he could have laughed out loud at this childish
speech; but anxiety helps him to restrain his mirth. Nevertheless he
feels an unholy joy as he thinks on Mr. Moore's bald pate, his "too, too
solid flesh," and his "many days."
"Yet he dares to admire you?" is what he does say, after a decided
pause.
"Sure they all admire me," says Miss Mona, with an exasperating smile,
meant to wither.
But Mr. Rodney is determined to "have it out with her," as he himself
would say, before consenting to fade away out of her sight.
"But he wants to marry you. I know he does. Tell me the truth about
that," he says, with flattering vehemence.
"Certainly I shall not. It would be very mean, and I wonder at you to
ask the question," says Mona, with a great show of virtuous indignation.
"Besides," mischievously, "if you know, there is no necessity to tell
you anything."
"Yet answer me," persists he, very earnestly.
"I can't," says Mona; "it would be very unfair; and besides,"
petulantly, "it is all too absurd. Why, if Mr. Moore were to ask me to
marry him ten thousand times again, I should never say anything but
'no.'"
Unconsciously she has betrayed herself. He hears the word "again" with a
strange sinking of the heart. Others, then, are desirous of claiming
this wild flower for their own.
"Oh, Mona, do you mean that?" he says. But Mona, who is very justly
incensed, declines to answer him with civility.
"I begin to think our English cousins are not famous for their
veracity," she says, with some scorn. "You seem to doubt every one's
word; or is it mine in particular? Yet I spoke the truth. I do not want
to marry any one."
Here she turns and looks him full in the face; and something--it may be
in the melancholy of his expression--so amuses her that (laughter being
as natural to her lips as perfume to a flower) she breaks into a sunny
smile, and holds out to him her hand in token of amity.
"How could you be so absurd about that old Moore?" she says, lightly.
"Why he has got nothing to recommend him except his money; and what
good," with a sigh, "does that do him, unless to get him murdered!"
"If he is as fat as you say, he will be a good mark for a bullet," says
Mr. Rodney, genially, almost--I am ashamed to say--hopefully. "I should
think they would easily pot him one of these dark night that are coming.
By this time I suppose he feels more like a grouse than a man,
eh?--'I'll die game' should be his motto."
"I wish you wouldn't talk like that," says Mona, with a shudder. "It
isn't at all nice of you; and especially when you know how miserable I
am about my poor country."
"It is a pity anything should be said against Ireland," says Rodney,
cleverly; "it is such a lovely little spot."
"Do you really like it?" asks she, plainly delighted.
"I should rather think so. Who wouldn't? I went to Glengariffe the other
day, and can hardly fancy anything more lovely than its pure waters, and
its purple hills that lie continued in the depths beneath."
"I have been there. And at Killarney, but only once, though we live so
near."
"That has nothing to do with it," says Rodney. "The easier one can get
to a place the more one puts off going. I knew a fellow once, and he
lived all his time in London, and I give you my word he had never seen
the Crystal Palace. With whom did you go to Killarney?"
"With Lady Mary. She was staying at the castle there; it was last year,
and she asked me to go with her. I was delighted. And it was so
pleasant, and everything so--so like heaven. The lakes are delicious, so
calm, so solitary, so full of thought. Lady Mary is old, but young in
manner, and has read and travelled so much, and she likes me," says
Mona, naively. "And I like her. Do you know her?"
"Lady Mary Crighton? Yes, I have met her. An old lady with corkscrew
ringlets, patches, and hoops? She is quite _grande dame_, and witty,
like all you Irish people."
"She is very seldom at home, but I think I like her better than any one
I ever met."
"Do you?" says Geoffrey, in a tone that means much.
"Yes,--better than all the women I ever met," corrects Mona, but without
placing the faintest emphasis upon the word "women," which omission
somehow possesses its charm in Rodney's eyes.
"Well, I shall go and judge of Killarney myself some day," he says,
idly.
"Oh, yes, you must indeed," says the little enthusiast, brightening.
"It is more than lovely. How I wish I could go with you!"
She looks at him as she says this, fearlessly, honestly, and without a
suspicion of coquetry.
"I wish you could!" says Geoffrey from his heart.
"Well, I can't, you know," with a sigh. "But no matter: you will enjoy
the scenery even more by yourself."
"I don't think I shall," says Geoffrey, in a low tone.
"Well, we have both seen the bay," says Mona, cheerfully,--"Bantry Bay I
mean: so we can talk about that. Yet indeed"--seriously--"you cannot be
said to have seen it properly, as it is only by moonlight its full
beauty can be appreciated. Then, with its light waves sparkling beneath
the gleam of the stars, and the moon throwing a path across it that
seems to go on and on, until it reaches heaven, it is more satisfying
than a happy dream. Do you see that hill up yonder?" pointing to an
elevation about a mile distant: "there I sometimes sit when the moon is
full, and watch the bay below. There is a lovely view from that spot."
"I wish I could see it!" says Geoffrey, longingly.
"Well so you can," returns she, kindly. "Any night when there is a good
moon come to me and I will go with you to Carrickdhuve--that is the name
of the hill--and show you the bay."
She looks at him quite calmly, as one might who sees nothing in the fact
of accompanying a young man to the top of a high mountain after
nightfall. And in truth she does see nothing in it. If he wishes to see
the bay she loves so well, of course he must see it; and who so
competent to point out to him all its beauties as herself?
"I wonder when the moon will be full," says Geoffrey, making this
ordinary remark in an everyday tone that does him credit, and speaks
well for his kindliness and delicacy of feeling, as well as for his
power of discerning character. He makes no well-turned speeches about
the bay being even more enchanting under such circumstances, or any
orthodox compliment that might have pleased a woman versed in the
world's ways.
"We must see," says Mona, thoughtfully.
They have reached the farm again by this time, and Geoffrey, taking up
the guns he had left behind the hall door,--or what old Scully is
pleased to call the front door in contradistinction to the back door,
through which he is in the habit of making his exits and
entrances,--holds out his hand to bid her good-by.
"Come in for a little while and rest yourself," says Mona, hospitably,
"while I get the brandy and send it up to poor Kitty."
It strikes Geoffrey as part of the innate sweetness and genuineness of
her disposition that, after all the many changes of thought that have
passed through her brain on their return journey, her first concern on
entering her own doors is for the poor unhappy creature in the cabin up
yonder.
"Don't be long," he says, impulsively, as she disappears down a passage.
"I won't, then. Sure you can live alone with yourself for one minute,"
returns she, in very fine Irish; and, with a parting smile, sweet as
nectar and far more dangerous, she goes.
When she is gone, Geoffrey walks impatiently up and down the small hall,
conflicting emotions robbing him of the serenity that usually attends
his footsteps. He is happy, yet full of a secret gnawing uneasiness that
weighs upon him daily, hourly. Near Mona--when in her presence--a
gladness that amounts almost to perfect happiness is his; apart from her
is unrest. Love, although he is but just awakening to the fact, has laid
his chubby hands upon him, and now holds him in thrall; so that no
longer for him is that most desirable thing content,--which means
indifference. Rather is he melancholy now and then, and inclined to look
on life apart from Mona as a doubtful good.
For what, after all, is love, but
"A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet?"
There are, too, dispassionate periods, when he questions the wisdom of
giving his heart to a girl lowly born as Mona undoubtedly is, at least
on her father's side. And, indeed, the little drop of blue blood
inherited from her mother is so faint in hue as to be scarcely
recognizable by those inclined to cavil.
And these he knows will be many: there would be first his mother, and
then Nick, with a silent tongue but brows uplifted, and after them
Violet, who in the home circle is regarded as Geoffrey's "affinerty,"
and who last year was asked to Rodney Towers for the express purpose
(though she knew it not) of laying siege to his heart and bestowing upon
him in return her hand and--fortune. To do Lady Rodney justice, she was
never blind to the fortune!
Yet Violet, with her pretty, slow, _trainante_ voice and perfect manner,
and small pale attractive face, and great eyes that seem too earnest for
the fragile body to which they belong, is as naught before Mona, whose
beauty is strong and undeniable, and whose charm lies as much in inward
grace as in outward loveliness.
Though uncertain that she regards him with any feeling stronger than
that of friendliness (because of the strange coldness that she at times
affects, dreading perhaps lest he shall see too quickly into her tender
heart), yet instinctively he knows that he is welcome in her sight, and
that "the day grows brighter for his coming." Still, at times this
strange coldness puzzles him, not understanding that
"No lesse was she in secret heart affected,
But that she masked it in modestie,
For feare she should of lightnesse be detected."
For many days he had not known "that his heart was darkened with her
shadow." Only yesterday he might perhaps have denied his love for her,
so strange, so uncertain, so undreamt of, is the dawning of a first
great attachment. One looks upon the object that attracts, and finds the
deepest joy in looking, yet hardly realizes the great truth that she has
become part of one's being, not to be eradicated until death or change
come to the rescue.
Perhaps Longfellow has more cleverly--and certainly more tenderly--than
any other poet described the earlier approaches of the god of Love, when
he says,--
"The first sound in the song of love
Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,
And play the prelude of our fate."
For Geoffrey the prelude has been played, and now at last he knows it.
Up and down the little hall he paces, his hands behind his back, as his
wont when deep in day-dreams, and asks himself many a question hitherto
unthought of. Can he--shall he--go farther in this matter? Then this
thought presses to the front beyond all others:--"Does she--will
she--ever love me?"
"Now, hurry, Bridget," says Mona's low soft voice,--that "excellent
thing in woman." "Don't be any time. Just give that to Kitty, and say
one prayer, and be back in ten minutes."
"Law, Miss Mona, ye needn't tell me; sure I'm flyin' I'll be there an'
back before ye'll know I'm gone." This from the agile Biddy, as
(exhilarated with the knowledge that she is going to see a corpse) she
rushes up the road.
"Now come and see my own room," says Mona, going up to Rodney, and,
slipping her hand into his in a little trustful fashion that is one of
her many, loving ways, she leads him along the hall to a door opposite
the kitchen. This she opens, and with conscious pride draws him after
her across its threshold. So holding him, she might at this moment have
drawn him to the world's end,--wherever that may be!
It is a very curious little room they enter,--yet pretty, withal, and
suggestive of care and affection, and certainly not one to be laughed
at. Each object that meets the view seems replete with pleasurable
memory,--seems part of its gentle mistress. There are two windows,
small, and with diamond panes like the parlor, and in the far end is a
piano. There are books, and some ornaments, and a huge bowl of
sweetly-smelling flowers on the centre-table, and a bracket or two
against the walls. Some loose music is lying on a chair.
"Now I am here, you will sing me something," says Geoffrey, presently.
"I wonder what kind of songs you like best," says Mona, dreamily,
letting her fingers run noiselessly over the keys of the Collard. "If
you are like me, you like sad ones."
"Then I am like you?" returns he, quickly.
"Then I will sing you a song I was sent last week," says Mona, and
forthwith sings him "Years Ago," mournfully, pathetically, and with all
her soul, as it should be sung. Then she gives him "London Bridge," and
then "Rose-Marie," and then she takes her fingers from the piano and
looks at him with a fond hope that he will see fit to praise her work.
"You are an artiste," says Geoffrey, with a deep sigh when she has
finished. "Who taught you, child? But there is no use in such a
question. Nobody could teach it to you: you must feel it as you sing.
And yet you are scarcely to be envied. Your singing has betrayed to me
one thing: if ever you suffer any great trouble it will kill you."
"I am not going to suffer," says Mona, lightly. "Sorrow only falls on
every second generation; and you know poor mother was very unhappy at
one time: therefore I am free. You will call that superstition, but,"
with a grave shake of her head, "it is quite true."
"I hope it is," says Geoffrey; "though, taking your words for gospel, it
rather puts me out in the cold. My mother seems to have had rather a
good time all through, devoid of anything that might be termed trouble."
"But she lost her husband," says Mona, gently.
"Well, she did. I don't remember about that, you know. I was quite a
little chap, and hustled out of sight if I said 'boo.' But of course
she's got over all that, and is as jolly as a sand-boy now," says
Geoffrey, gayly. (If only Lady Rodney could have heard him comparing her
to a "sand-boy"!)
"Poor thing!" says Mona, sympathetically, which sympathy, by the by, is
utterly misplaced, as Lady Rodney thought her husband, if anything, an
old bore, and three months after his death confessed to herself that she
was very glad he was no more.
"Where do you get your music?" asks Geoffrey, idly, wondering how
"London Bridge" has found its way to this isolated spot, as he thinks of
the shops in the pretty village near, where Molloy and Adams, and their
attendant sprite called Weatherley, are unknown.
"The boys send it to me. Anything new that comes out, or anything they
think will suit my voice, they post to me at once."
"The boys!" repeats he, mystified.
"Yes, the students, I mean. When with aunty in Dublin I knew ever so
many of them, and they were very fond of me."
"I dare say," says Mr. Rodney, with rising ire.
"Jack Foster and Terry O'Brien write to me very often," goes on Mona,
unconsciously. "And indeed they all do occasionally, at Christmas, you
know, and Easter and Midsummer, just to ask me how I am, and to tell me
how they have got through their exams. But it is Jack and Terry, for the
most part, who send me the music."
"It is very kind of them, I'm sure," says Geoffrey, unreasonably
jealous, as, could he only have seen the said Terry's shock head of red
hair, his fears of rivalry would forever have been laid at rest. "But
they are favored friends. You can take presents from them, and yet the
other day when I asked you if you would like a little gold chain to hang
to your mother's watch, you answered me 'that you did not require it' in
such a tone as actually froze me and made me feel I had said something
unpardonably impertinent."
"Oh, no," says Mona, shocked at this interpretation of her manner. "I
did not mean all that; only I really did not require it; at
least"--truthfully--"not _much_. And, besides, a song is not like a gold
chain; and you are quite different from them; and besides,
again,"--growing slightly confused, yet with a last remnant of
courage,--"there is no reason why you should give me anything. Shall
I"--hurriedly--"sing something else for you?"
And then she sings again, some old-world song of love and chivalry that
awakes within one a quick longing for a worthier life. Her sweet voice
rings through the room, now glad with triumph, now sad with a "lovely
melancholy," as the words and music sway her. Her voice is clear and
pure and full of pathos! She seems to follow no rule; an "f" here or a
"p" there, on the page before her, she heeds not, but sings only as her
heart dictates.
When she has finished, Geoffrey says "thank you" in a low tone. He is
thinking of the last time when some one else sang to him, and of how
different the whole scene was from this. It was at the Towers, and the
hour with its dying daylight, rises before him. The subdued light of the
summer eve, the open window, the perfume of the drowsy flowers, the girl
at the piano with her small drooping head and her perfectly trained and
very pretty voice, the room, the soft silence, his mother leaning back
in her crimson velvet chair, beating time to the music with her long
jewelled, fingers,--all is remembered.
It was in the boudoir they were sitting, and Violet was dressed in some
soft gray dress that shone and turned into palest pearl as she moved. It
was his mother's boudoir, the room she most affects, with its crimson
and gray coloring and its artistic arrangements, that blend so
harmoniously, and are so tremendously becoming to the complexion when
the blinds are lowered. How pretty Mona would look in a gray and crimson
room? how----
"What are you thinking of?" asks Mona, softly, breaking in upon his
soliloquy.
"Of the last time I heard any one sing," returns he, slowly. "I was
comparing that singer very unfavorably with you. Your voice is so unlike
what one usually hears in drawing-rooms."
He means highest praise. She accepts his words as a kind rebuke.
"Is that a compliment?" she says, wistfully. "Is it well to be unlike
all the world? Yet what you say is true, no doubt. I suppose I am
different from--from all the other people you know."
This is half a question; and Geoffrey, answering it from his heart,
sinks even deeper into the mire.
"You are indeed," he says, in a tone so grateful that it ought to have
betrayed to her his meaning. But grief and disappointment have seized
upon her.
"Yes, of course," she says, dejectedly. A cloud seems to have fallen
upon her happy hour. "When did you hear that--that last singer?" she
asks, in a subdued voice.
"At home," returns he. He is gazing out of the window, with his hands
clasped behind his back, and does not pay so much attention to her words
as is his wont.
"Is your home very beautiful?" asks she, timidly, looking at him the
more earnestly in that he seems rapt in contemplation of the valley that
spreads itself before him.
"Yes, very beautiful," he answers, thinking of the stately oaks and aged
elms and branching beeches that go so far to make up the glory of the
ivied Towers.
"How paltry this country must appear in comparison with your own!" goes
on the girl, longing for a contradiction, and staring at her little
brown hands, the fingers of which are twining and intertwining nervously
with one another, "How glad you will be to get back to your own home!"
"Yes, very glad," returns he, hardly knowing what he says. He has gone
back again to his first thoughts,--his mother's boudoir, with its old
china, and its choice water-colors that line the walls, and its delicate
Italian statuettes. In his own home--which is situated about fourteen
miles from the Towers, and which is rather out of repair through years
of disuse--there are many rooms. He is busy now trying to remember them,
and to decide which of them would look best decked out in crimson and
gray, or blue and silver: he hardly knows which would suit her best.
Perhaps, after all----
"How strange it is!" says Mona's voice, that has now a faint shade of
sadness in it. "How people come and go in one's lives, like the waves of
the restless sea, now breaking at one's feet, now receding, now----"
"Only to return," interrupts he, quickly. "And--to break at your feet?
to break one's heart, do you mean? I do not like your simile."
"You jest," says Mona, full of calm reproach. "I mean how strangely
people fall into one's lives and then out again!" She hesitates. Perhaps
something in his face warns her, perhaps it is the weariness of her own
voice that frightens her, but at this moment her whole expression
changes, and a laugh, forced but apparently full of gayety, comes from
her lips. It is very well done indeed, yet to any one but a jealous
lover her eyes would betray her. The usual softness is gone from them,
and only a well-suppressed grief and a pride that cannot be suppressed
take its place.
"Why should they fall out again?" says Rodney, a little angrily, hearing
only her careless laugh, and--man-like--ignoring stupidly the pain in
her lovely eyes. "Unless people choose to forget."
"One may choose to forget, but one may not be able to accomplish it. To
forget or to remember is not in one's own power."
"That is what fickle people say. But what one feels one remembers."
"That is true, for a time, with some. _Forever_ with others."
"Are you one of the others?"
She makes him no answer.
"Are _you_?" she says, at length, after a long silence.
"I think so, Mona. There is one thing I shall never get."
"Many things, I dare say," she says, nervously, turning from him.
"Why do you speak of people dropping out of your life?"
"Because, of course, you will, you must. Your world is not mine."
"You could make it yours."
"I do not understand," she says, very proudly, throwing up her head with
a charming gesture. "And, talking of forgetfulness, do you know what
hour it is?"
"You evidently want to get rid of me," says Rodney, discouraged, taking
up his hat. He takes up her hand, too, and holds it warmly, and looks
long and earnestly into her face.
"By the by," he says, once more restored to something like hope, as he
notes her drooping lids and changing color and how she hides from his
searching gaze her dark, blue, Irish eyes, that, as somebody has so
cleverly expressed it, seem "rubbed into her head with a dirty finger,"
so marked lie the shadows beneath them, that enhance and heighten their
beauty,--"by the by, you told me you had a miniature of your mother in
your desk, and you promised to show it to me." He merely says this with
a view to gaining more time, and not from any overwhelming desire to see
the late Mrs. Scully.
"It is here," says Mona, rather pleased at his remembering this promise
of hers, and, going to a desk, proceeds to open a secret drawer, in
which lies the picture in question.
It is a very handsome picture, and Geoffrey duly admires it; then it is
returned to its place, and Mona, opening the drawer next to it, shows
him some exquisite ferns dried and gummed on paper.
"What a clever child you are!" says Geoffrey, with genuine admiration.
"And what is here?" laying his hand on the third drawer.
"Oh, do not open that--do not!" says Mona, hastily, in an agony of fear,
to judge by her eyes, laying a deterring hand upon his arm.
"And why not this or any other drawer?" says Rodney, growing pale. Again
jealousy, which is a demon, rises in his breast, and thrusts out all
gentler feelings. Her allusion to Mr. Moore, most innocently spoken,
and, later on, her reference to the students, have served to heighten
within him angry suspicion.
"Do not!" says Mona, again, as though fresh words are impossible to her,
drawing her breath quickly. Her evident agitation incenses him to the
last degree. Opening the drawer impulsively, he gazes at its contents.
Only a little withered bunch of heather, tied by a blade of grass!
Nothing more!
Rodney's heart throbs with passionate relief, yet shame covers him; for
he himself, one day, had given her that heather, tied, as he remembers,
with that selfsame grass; and she, poor child, had kept it ever since.
She had treasured it, and laid it aside, apart from all other objects,
among her most sacred possessions, as a thing beloved and full of tender
memories; and his had been the hand to ruthlessly lay bare this hidden
secret of her soul.
He is overcome with contrition, and would perhaps have said something
betraying his scorn of himself, but she prevents him.
"Yes," she says, with cheeks colored to a rich carmine, and flashing
eyes, and lips that quiver in spite of all her efforts at control, "that
is the bit of heather you gave me, and that is the grass that tied it. I
kept it because it reminded me of a day when I was happy. Now,"
bitterly, "I no longer care for it: for the future it can only bring
back to me an hour when I was grieved and wounded."
Taking up the hapless heather, she throws it on the ground, and, in a
fit of childish spleen, lays her foot upon it and tramples it out of all
recognition. Yet, even as she does so, the tears gather in her eyes,
and, resting there unshed, transfigure her into a lovely picture that
might well be termed "Beauty in Distress." For this faded flower she
grieves, as though it were, indeed, a living thing that she has lost.
"Go!" she says, in a choked voice, and with a little passionate sob,
pointing to the door. "You have done mischief enough." Her gesture is at
once imperious and dignified. Then in a softer voice, that tells of
sorrow, and with a deep sigh, "At least," she says, "I believed in your
honor!"
The reproach is terrible, and cuts him to the heart. He picks up the
poor little bruised flower, and holds it tenderly in his hand.
"How can I go," he says, without daring to look at her, "until, at
least, I _ask_ for forgiveness?" He feels more nervous, more crushed in
the presence of this little wounded Irish girl with her pride and her
grief, than he has ever felt in the presence of an offended fashionable
beauty full of airs and caprices. "Mona, love makes one cruel: I ask you
to remember that, because it is my only excuse," he says, warmly. "Don't
condemn me altogether; but forgive me once more."
"I am always forgiving you, it seems to me," says Mona, coldly, turning
from him with a frown. "And as for that heather," facing him again, with
eyes shamed but wrathful, "I just kept it because--because--oh, because
I didn't like to throw it away! That was all!"
Her meaning, in spite of her, is clear; but Geoffrey doesn't dare so
much as to think about it. Yet in his heart he knows that he is glad
because of her words.
"You mustn't think I supposed you kept it for any other purpose," he
says, quite solemnly, and in such a depressed tone that Mona almost
feels sorry for him.
He has so far recovered his courage that he has taken her hand, and is
now holding it in a close grasp; and Mona, though a little frown still
lingers on her low, broad forehead, lets her hand so lie without a
censure.
"Mona, _do_ be friends with me," he says at last, desperately, driven to
simplicity of language through his very misery. There is a humility in
this speech that pleases her.
"It is really hardly worth talking about," she says, grandly. "I was
foolish to lay so great a stress on such a trifling matter. It doesn't
signify, not in the least. But--but," the blood mounting to her brow,
"if ever you speak of it again,--if ever you even _mention_ the word
'heather,'--I shall _hate you_!"
"That word shall never pass my lips again in your company,--never, I
swear!" says he, "until you give me leave. My darling," in a low tone,
"if you could only know how vexed I am about the whole affair, and my
unpardonable conduct! Yet, Mona, I will not hide from you that this
little bit of senseless heather has made me happier than I have ever
been before."
Stooping, he presses his lips to her hand for the first time. The caress
is long and fervent.
"Say I am quite forgiven," he pleads, earnestly, his eyes on hers.
"Yes. I forgive you," she says, almost in a whisper, with a seriousness
that amounts to solemnity.
Still holding her hand, as though loath to quit it, he moves towards the
door; but before reaching it she slips away from him, and says "Good-by"
rather coldly.
"When am I to see you again?" says Rodney, anxiously.
"Oh not for ever so long," returns she, with much and heartless
unconcern. (His spirits sink to zero.) "Certainly not until Friday," she
goes on, carelessly. (As this is Wednesday, his spirits once more rise
into the seventh heaven.) "Or Saturday, or Sunday, or perhaps some day
next week," she says, unkindly.
"If on Friday night there is a good moon," says Rodney, boldly, "will
you take me, as you promised, to see the Bay?"
"Yes, if it is fine," says Mona, after a faint hesitation.
Then she accompanies him to the door, but gravely, and not with her
accustomed gayety. Standing on the door-step he looks at her, and, as
though impelled to ask the question because of her extreme stillness, he
says, "Of what are you thinking?"
"I am thinking that the man we saw before going into Kitty's cabin is
the murderer!" she says, with a strong shudder.
"I thought so all along," says Geoffrey, gravely.