HOW FATE DEALS HARSHLY WITH MONA, AND HOW SHE DROOPS--AS MIGHT A
FLOWER--BENEATH ITS UNKINDLY TOUCH.
To gain Lady Rodney's friendship is a more difficult thing than Mona in
her ignorance had imagined, and she is determined to be ice itself to
her poor little guest. As for her love, when first Mona's eyes lit upon
her she abandoned all hope of ever gaining that.
With Captain Rodney and Sir Nicholas she makes way at once, though she
is a little nervous and depressed, and not altogether like her usual gay
_insouciant_ self. She is thrown back upon herself, and, like a timid
snail, recoils sadly into her shell.
Yet Nature, sooner or later, must assert itself; and after a day or two
a ringing laugh breaks from her, or a merry jest, that does Geoffrey's
heart good, and brings an answering laugh and jest to the lips of her
new brothers.
Of Violet Mansergh--who is still at the Towers, her father being abroad
and Lady Rodney very desirous of having her with her--she knows little.
Violet is cold, but quite civil, as Englishwomen will be until they know
you. She is, besides, somewhat prejudiced against Mona, because--being
honest herself--she has believed all the false tales told her of the
Irish girl. These silly tales, in spite of her belief in her own
independence of thought, weigh upon her; and so she draws back from
Mona, and speaks little to her, and then of only ordinary topics, while
the poor child is pining for some woman to whom she can open her mind
and whom she may count as an honest friend "For talking with a friend,"
says Addison, "is nothing else but thinking aloud."
Of Lady Rodney's studied dislike Mona's sensitive nature could not long
remain in ignorance; yet, having a clear conscience, and not knowing in
what she has offended,--save in cleaving to the man she loves, even to
the extent of marrying him,--she keeps a calm countenance, and bravely
waits what time may bring.
To quarrel with Geoffrey's people will be to cause Geoffrey silent but
acute regret, and so for his sake, to save him pain, she quietly bears
many things, and waits for better days. What is a month or two of
misery, she tells herself, but a sigh amidst the pleasures of one's
life? Yet I think it is the indomitable pluck and endurance of her race
that carries her successfully through all her troubles.
Still, she grows a little pale and dispirited after a while, for
"Dare, when it once is entered in the breast,
Will have the whole possession ere it rest."
One day, speaking of Sir Nicholas to Lady Rodney, she had--as was most
natural--called him "Nicholas." But she had been cast back upon herself
and humiliated to the earth by his mother's look of cold disapproval and
the emphasis she had laid upon the "Sir" Nicholas when next speaking of
him.
This had widened the breach more than all the rest, though Nicholas
himself, being quite fascinated by her, tries earnestly to make her
happy and at home with him.
About a week after her arrival--she having expressed her admiration of
ferns the night before--he draws her hand through his arm and takes her
to his own special sanctum,--off which a fernery has been thrown, he
being an enthusiastic grower of that lovely weed.
Mona is enchanted with the many varieties she sees that are unknown to
her, and, being very much not of the world, is not ashamed to express
her delight. Looking carefully through all, she yet notices that a tiny
one, dear to her, because common to her sweet Killarney, is not among
his collection.
She tells him of it, and he is deeply interested; and when she proposes
to write and get him one from her native soil, he is glad as a schoolboy
promised a new bat, and her conquest of Sir Nicholas is complete.
And indeed the thought of this distant fern is as dear to Mona as to
him. For to her comes a rush of tender joy, as she tells herself she may
soon be growing in this alien earth a green plant torn from her
fatherland.
"But I hope you will not be disappointed when you see it," she says,
gently. "You have the real Killarney fern, Sir Nicholas, I can see; the
other, I speak of, though to me almost as lovely, is not a bit like it."
She is very careful to give him his title ever since that encounter with
his mother.
"I shall not be disappointed. I have read all about it," returns he,
enthusiastically. Then, as though the thought has just struck him, he
says,--
"Why don't you call me Nicholas, as Geoffrey does?"
Mona hesitates, then says, shyly, with downcast eyes,--
"Perhaps Lady Rodney would not like it."
Her face betrays more than she knows.
"It doesn't matter in the least what any one thinks on this subject,"
says Nicholas, with a slight frown, "I shall esteem it a very great
honor if you will call me by my Christian name. And besides, Mona, I
want you to try to care for me,--to love me, as I am your brother."
The ready tears spring into Mona's eyes. She is more deeply,
passionately grateful to him for this small speech than he will ever
know.
"Now, that is very kind of you," she says, lifting her eyes, humid with
tears, to his. "And I think it will take only a very little time to make
me love you!"
After this, she and Sir Nicholas are even better friends than they have
been before,--a silent bond of sympathy seeming to exist between them.
With Captain Rodney, though he is always kind to her, she makes less
way, he being devoted to the society of Violet, and being besides of
such a careless disposition as prevents his noticing the wants of those
around,--which is perhaps another name for selfishness.
Yet selfish is hardly the word to apply to Jack Rodney, because at heart
he is kindly and affectionate, and, if a little heedless and
indifferent, is still good _au fond_. He is light hearted and agreeable,
and singularly hopeful:--
"A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays
And confident to morrow."
During the past month he has grown singularly domestic, and fond of home
and its associations. Perhaps Violet has something to do with this, with
her little calm thoroughbred face, and gentle manners, and voice low and
_trainante_. Yet it would be hard to be sure of this, Captain Rodney
being one of those who have "sighed to many," without even the saving
clause of having "loved but one." Yet with regard to Mona there is no
mistake about Jack Rodney's sentiments. He likes her well (could she
but know it) in all sincerity.
Of course everybody that is anybody has called on the new Mrs. Rodney.
The Duchess of Lauderdale who is an old friend of Lady Rodney's, and who
is spending the winter at her country house to please her son the young
duke, who is entertaining a houseful of friends, is almost the first to
come. And Lady Lillias Eaton, the serious and earnest-minded young
aesthetic,--than whom nothing can be more coldly and artistically correct
according to her own school,--is perhaps the second: but to both,
unfortunately, Mona is "not at home."
And very honestly, too, because at the time of their visits, when Lady
Rodney was entertaining them in the big drawing-room and uttering
platitudes and pretty lies by the score, she was deep in the recesses of
the bare brown wood, roaming hither and thither in search of such few
flowers as braved the wintry blasts.
For all this Lady Rodney is devoutly thankful. She is glad of the girl's
absence. She has no desire to exhibit her, prejudice making Mona's few
defects to look monstrous in her eyes. Yet these same defects might
perhaps be counted on the fingers of one hand.
There is, for example, her unavoidable touch of brogue, her little
gesture of intense excitement, and irrepressible exclamation when
anything is said that affects or interests her, and her laugh, which, if
too loud for ordinary drawing-room use, is yet so sweet and catching
that involuntarily it brings an answering laugh to the lips of those who
hear it.
All these faults, and others of even less weight, are an abomination in
the eyes of Lady Rodney, who has fallen into a prim mould, out of which
it would now be difficult to extricate her.
"There is a set of people whom I cannot bear," says Chalmers, "the pinks
of fashionable propriety, whose every word is precise, and whose every
movement is unexceptionable, but who, though versed in all the
categories of polite behavior, have not a particle of soul or cordiality
about them."
Such folk Chalmers hated; and I agree with Chalmers. And of this class
is Lady Rodney, without charity or leniency for the shortcomings of
those around her. Like many religious people,--who are no doubt good in
their own way,--she fails to see any grace in those who differ from her
in thought and opinion.
And by degrees, beneath her influence, Mona grows pale and _distrait_
and in many respects unlike her old joyous self. Each cold, reproving
glance and sneering word,--however carefully concealed--falls like a
touch of ice upon her heart, chilling and withering her glad youth. Up
to this she has led a bird's life, gay, _insouciant_, free and careless.
Now her song seems checked, her sweetest notes are dying fast away
through lack of sympathy. She is "cribbed, cabined, and confined,"
through no fault of her own, and grows listless and dispirited in her
captivity.
And Geoffrey, who is blind to nothing that concerns her notices all
this, and secretly determines on taking her away from all this foolish
persecution, to London or elsewhere, until such time as their own home
shall be ready to receive them.
But at this break in my history, almost as he forms this resolution, an
event occurs that brings friends to Mona, and changes _in toto_ the
aspect of affairs.