HOW MONA TAKES A WALK ABROAD--AND HOW SHE ASKS CROSS-QUESTIONS AND
RECEIVES CROOKED ANSWERS.
It is ten days later,--ten dreary, interminable days, that have
struggled into light, and sunk back again into darkness, leaving no
trace worthy of remembrance in their train. "Swift as swallows' wings"
they have flown, scarce breaking the air in their flight, so silently,
so evenly they have departed, as days will, when dull monotony marks
them for its own.
To-day is cool, and calm, and bright. Almost one fancies the first faint
breath of spring has touched one's cheek, though as yet January has not
wended to its weary close, and no smallest sign of growth or vegetation
makes itself felt.
The grass is still brown, the trees barren, no ambitious floweret
thrusts its head above the bosom of its mother earth,--except, indeed,
those "floures white and rede, such as men callen daisies," that always
seem to beam upon the world, no matter how the wind blows.
Just now it is blowing softly, delicately, as though its fury of the
night before had been an hallucination of the brain. It is "a sweet and
passionate wooer," says Longfellow, and lays siege to "the blushing
leaf." There are no leaves for it to kiss to-day: so it bestows its
caresses upon Mona as she wanders forth, close guarded by her two stanch
hounds that follow at her heels.
There is a strange hush and silence everywhere. The very clouds are
motionless in their distant homes.
"There has not been a sound to-day
To break the calm of Nature:
Nor motion, I might almost say,
Of life, or living creature,
Of waving bough, or warbling bird,
Or cattle faintly lowing:
I could have half believed I heard
The leaves and blossoms growing."
Indeed, no sound disturbs the sacred silence save the crisp rustle of
the dead leaves, as they are trodden into the ground.
Over the meadows and into the wood goes Mona, to where a streamlet runs,
that is her special joy,--being of the garrulous and babbling order,
which is, perhaps, the nearest approach to divine music that nature can
make. But to-day the stream is swollen, is enlarged beyond all
recognition, and, being filled with pride at its own promotion, has
forgotten its little loving song, and is rushing onward with a
passionate roar to the ocean.
Down from the cataract in the rocks above the water comes with a mighty
will, foaming, glistening, shouting a loud triumphant paen as it flings
itself into the arms of the vain brook beneath, that only yesterday-eve
was a stream, but to-day may well be deemed a river.
Up high the rocks are overgrown with ferns, and drooping things, all
green and feathery, that hide small caves and picturesque crannies,
through which the bright-eyed Naiads might peep whilst holding back with
bare uplifted arms their amber hair, the better to gaze upon the
unconscious earth outside.
A loose stone that has fallen from its home in the mountain-side above
uprears itself in the middle of this turbulent stream. But it is too far
from the edge, and Mona, standing irresolutely on the brink, pauses, as
though half afraid to take the step that must either land her safely on
the other side or else precipitate her into the angry little river.
As she thus ponders within herself, Spice and Allspice, the two dogs,
set up a simultaneous howl, and immediately afterwards a voice says,
eagerly,--
"Wait, Mrs. Rodney. Let me help you across."
Mona starts, and, looking up, sees the Australian coming quickly towards
her.
"You are very kind. The river is greatly swollen," she says, to gain
time. Geoffrey, perhaps, will not like her to accept any civility at the
hands of this common enemy.
"Not so much so that I cannot help you to cross over in safety, if you
will only trust yourself to me," replies he.
Still she hesitates, and he is not slow to notice the eloquent pause.
"Is it worth so much thought?" he says, bitterly. "It surely will not
injure you fatally to lay your hand in mine for one instant."
"You mistake me," says Mona, shocked at her own want of courtesy; and
then she extends to him her hand, and, setting her foot upon the huge
stone, springs lightly to his side.
Once there she has to go with him down the narrow woodland path, there
being no other, and so paces on, silently, and sorely against her will.
"Sir Nicholas has sent me an invitation for the 19th," he says,
presently, when the silence has become unendurable.
"Yes," says Mona, devoutly hoping he is going to say he means to refuse
it. But such devout hope is wasted.
"I shall go," he says, doggedly, as though divining her secret wish.
"I am sure we shall all be very glad," she says, faintly, feeling
herself bound to make some remark.
"Thanks!" returns he, with an ironical laugh. "How excellently your tone
agrees with your words?"
Another pause. Mona is on thorns. Will the branching path, that may give
her a chance of escaping a further _tete-a-tete_ with him, never be
reached?
"So Warden failed you?" he says, presently, alluding to old Elspeth's
nephew.
"Yes,--so far," returns she, coldly.
"It was a feeble effort," declares he, contemptuously striking with his
cane the trunks of the trees as he goes by them.
"Yet I think Warden knows more than he cares to tell," says Mona, at a
venture. Why, she herself hardly knows.
He turns, as though by an irrepressible impulse, to look keenly at her.
His scrutiny endures only for an instant. Then he says, with admirable
indifference,--
"You have grounds for saying so, of course?"
"Perhaps I have. Do you deny I am in the right?" asks she, returning his
gaze undauntedly.
He drops his eyes, and the low, sneering laugh she has learned to know
and to hate so much comes again to his lips.
"It would be rude to deny that," he says, with a slight shrug. "I am
sure you are always in the right."
"If I am, Warden surely knows more about the will than he has sworn to."
"It is very probable,--if there ever was such a will. How should I know?
I have not cross-examined Warden on this or any other subject. He is an
overseer over my estate, a mere servant, nothing more."
"Has he the will?" asks Mona, foolishly, but impulsively.
"He may have, and a stocking full of gold, and the roc's egg, or
anything else, for aught I know. I never saw it. They tell me there was
an iniquitous and most unjust will drawn up some years ago by old Sir
George: that is all I know."
"By your grandfather!" corrects Mona, in a peculiar tone.
"Well, by my grandfather, if you so prefer it," repeats he, with much
unconcern. "It got itself, if it ever existed, irretrievably lost, and
that is all any one knows about it."
Mona is watching him intently.
"Yet I feel sure--I know," she says, tremulously, "you are hiding
something from me. Why do you not look at me when you answer my
questions?"
At this his dark face flames, and his eyes instinctively, yet almost
against his will, seek hers.
"Why?" he says, with suppressed passion. "Because, each time I do, I
know myself to be--what I am! Your truthful eyes are mirrors in which my
heart lies bare." With an effort he recovers himself, and, drawing his
breath quickly, grows calm again. "If I were to gaze at you as often as
I should desire, you would probably deem me impertinent," he says, with
a lapse into his former half-insolent tone.
"Answer me," persists Mona, not heeding--nay, scarcely hearing--his last
speech. "You said once it would be difficult to lie to me. Do you know
anything of this missing will?"
"A great deal. I should. I have heard of almost nothing else since my
arrival in England," replies he, slowly.
"Ah! Then you refuse to answer me," says Mona, hastily, if somewhat
wearily.
He makes no reply. And for a full minute no word is spoken between them.
Then Mona goes on quietly,--
"That night at Chetwoode you made use of some words that I have never
forgotten since."
He is plainly surprised. He is indeed glad. His face changes, as if by
magic, from sullen gloom to pleasurable anticipation.
"You have remembered something that I said, for eleven days?" he says,
quickly.
"Yes. When talking then of supplanting Sir Nicholas at the Towers, you
spoke of your project as a 'splendid scheme.' What did you mean by it? I
cannot get the words out of my head since. Is 'scheme' an honest word?"
Her tone is only too significant. His face has grown black again. A
heavy frown sits on his brow.
"You are not perhaps aware of it, but your tone is insulting," he
begins, huskily. "Were you a man I could give you an answer, now, here;
but as it is I am of course tied hand and foot. You can say to me what
you please. And I shall bear it. Think as badly of me as you will. I am
a schemer, a swindler, what you will!"
"Even in my thoughts I never applied those words to you," says Mona,
earnestly. "Yet some feeling here"--laying her hand upon her
heart--"compels me to believe you are not dealing fairly by us." To her
there is untruth in every line of his face, in every tone of his voice.
"You condemn me without a hearing, swayed by the influence of a
carefully educated dislike," retorts he:
"'Alas for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!'
But I blame the people you have fallen among,--not you."
"Blame no one," says Mona. "But if there is anything in your own heart
to condemn you, then pause before you go further in this matter of the
Towers."
"I wonder _you_ are not afraid of going too far," he puts in, warningly,
his dark eyes flashing.
"I am afraid of nothing," says Mona, simply. "I am not half so much
afraid as you were a few moments since, when you could not let your eyes
meet mine, and when you shrank from answering me a simple question. In
my turn I tell you to pause before going too far."
"Your advice is excellent," says he, sneeringly. Then suddenly he stops
short before her, and breaks out vehemently,----
"Were I to fling up this whole business and resign my chance, and leave
these people in possession, what would I gain by it?" demands he. "They
have treated me from the beginning with ignominy and contempt. You alone
have treated me with common civility; and even you they have tutored to
regard me with averted eyes."
"You are wrong," says Mona, coldly. "They seldom trouble themselves to
speak of you at all." This is crueller than she knows.
"Why don't I hate you?" he says, with some emotion. "How bitterly unkind
even the softest, sweetest women can be! Yet there is something about
you that subdues me and renders hatred impossible. If I had never met
you, I should be a happier man."
"How can you be happy with a weight upon your heart?" says Mona,
following out her own thoughts irrespective of his. "Give up this
project, and peace will return to you."
"No, I shall pursue it to its end," returns, he, with slow malice, that
makes her heart grow cold, "until the day comes that shall enable me to
plant my heel upon these aristocrats and crush them out of recognition."
"And after that what will remain to you?" asks she, pale but collected.
"It is bare comfort when hatred alone reigns in the heart. With such
thoughts in your breast what can you hope for?--what can life give you?"
"Something," replies he, with a short laugh. "I shall at least see you
again on the 19th."
He raises his hat, and, turning abruptly away, is soon lost to sight
round a curve in the winding pathway. He walks steadily and with an
unflinching air, but when the curve has hidden him from her eyes he
stops short, and sighs heavily.
"To love such a woman as that, and be beloved by her, how it would
change a man's whole nature, no matter how low he may have sunk," he
says, slowly. "It would mean salvation! But as it is--No, I cannot draw
back now: it is too late."
Meantime Mona has gone quickly back to the Towers her mind disturbed and
unsettled. Has she misjudged him? is it possible that his claim is a
just one after all, and that she has been wrong in deeming him one who
might defraud his neighbor?
She is sad and depressed before she reaches the hall door, where she is
unfortunate enough to find a carriage just arrived, well filled with
occupants eager to obtain admission.
They are the Carsons, mustered in force, and, if anything, a trifle more
noisy and oppressive than usual.
"How d'ye do, Mrs. Rodney? Is Lady Rodney at home? I hope so," says Mrs.
Carson, a fat, florid, smiling, impossible person of fifty.
Now, Lady Rodney _is_ at home, but, having given strict orders to the
servants to say she is anywhere else they like,--that is, to tell as
many lies as will save her from intrusion,--is just now reposing calmly
in the small drawing-room, sleeping the sleep of the just, unmindful of
coming evil.
Of all this Mona is unaware; though even were it otherwise I doubt if a
lie could come trippingly to her lips, or a nice evasion be balanced
there at a moment's notice. Such foul things as untruths are unknown to
her, and have no refuge in her heart. It is indeed fortunate that on
this occasion she knows no reason why her reply should differ from the
truth, because in that case I think she would stand still, and stammer
sadly, and grow uncomfortably red, and otherwise betray the fact that
she would lie if she knew how.
As things are, however, she is able to smile pleasantly at Mrs. Carson,
and tell her in her soft voice that Lady Rodney is at home.
"How fortunate!" says that fat woman, with her broad expansive grin that
leaves her all mouth, with no eyes or nose to speak of. "We hardly dared
hope for such good luck this charming day."
She doesn't put any _g_ into her "charming," which, however, is neither
here or there, and is perhaps a shabby thing to take notice of at all.
Then she and her two daughters quit the "coach," as Carson _pere_ insist
on calling the landau, and flutter through the halls, and across the
corridors, after Mona, until they reach the room that contains Lady
Rodney.
Mona throws open the door, and the visitors sail in, all open-eyed and
smiling, with their very best company manners hung out for the day.
But almost on the threshold they come to a full stop to gaze
irresolutely at one another, and then over their shoulders at Mona. She,
marking their surprise, comes hastily to the front, and so makes herself
acquainted with the cause of their delay.
Overcome by the heat of the fire, her luncheon, and the blessed
certainty that for this one day at least no one is to be admitted to her
presence, Lady Rodney has given herself up a willing victim to the child
Somnus. Her book--that amiable assistant of all those that court
siestas--has fallen to the ground. Her cap is somewhat awry. Her mouth
is partly open, and a snore--gentle, indeed, but distinct and
unmistakable--comes from her patrician throat.
It is a moment never to be forgotten!
Mona, horror-stricken, goes quickly over to her, and touches her lightly
on the shoulder.
"Mrs. Carson has come to see you," she says, in an agony of fear, giving
her a little shake.
"Eh? What?" asks Lady Rodney, in a dazed fashion, yet coming back to
life with amazing rapidity. She sits up. Then in an instant the
situation explains itself to her; she collects herself, bestows one
glance of passionate anger upon Mona, and then rises to welcome Mrs.
Carson with her usual suave manner and bland smile, throwing into the
former an air meant to convey the flattering idea that for the past week
she has been living on the hope of seeing her soon again.
She excuses her unwonted drowsiness with a little laugh, natural and
friendly, and begs them "not to betray her." Clothed in all this
sweetness she drops a word or two meant to crush Mona; but that hapless
young woman hears her not, being bent on explaining to Mrs. Carson that,
as a rule, the Irish peasantry do not go about dressed only in glass
beads, like the gay and festive Zulus, and that petticoats and breeches
are not utterly unknown.
This is tough work, and takes her all her time, as Mrs. Carson, having
made up her mind to the beads, accepts it rather badly being undeceived,
and goes nearly so far as telling Mona that she knows little or nothing
about her own people.
Then Violet and Doatie drop in, and conversation becomes general, and
presently the visit comes to an end, and the Carsons fade away, and Mona
is left to be bear the brunt of Lady Rodney's anger, which has been
steadily growing, instead of decreasing, during the past half-hour.
"Are there no servants in my house," demands she, in a terrible tone,
addressing Mona a steely light coming into her blue eyes that Mona knows
and hates so well, "that you must feel it your duty to guide my visitors
to my presence?"
"If I made a mistake I am sorry for it."
"It was unfortunate Mona should have met them at the hall door,--Edith
Carson told me about it,--but it could not be helped," says Violet
calmly.
"No, it couldn't be helped," says little Doatie. But their intervention
only appears to add fuel to the fire of Lady Rodney's wrath.
"It _shall_ be helped," she says, in a low, but condensed tone. "For the
future I forbid any one in my house to take it upon them to say whether
I am in or out. I am the one to decide that. On what principle did you
show them in here?" she asks, turning to Mona, her anger increasing as
she remembers the rakish cap: "why did you not say, when you were
unlucky enough to find yourself face to face with them, that I was not
at home?"
"Because you were at home," replies Mona, quietly, though in deep
distress.
"That doesn't matter," says Lady Rodney: "it is a mere formula. If it
suited your purpose you could have said so--I don't doubt--readily
enough."
"I regret that I met them," says Mona, who will not say she regrets she
told the truth.
"And to usher them in here! Into one of my most private rooms! Unlikely
people, like the Carsons, whom you have heard me speak of in disparaging
terms a hundred times! I don't know what you could have been thinking
about. Perhaps next time you will be kind enough to bring them to my
bedroom."
"You misunderstand me," says Mona, with tears in her eyes.
"I hardly think so. You can refuse to see people yourself when it suits
you. Only yesterday, when Mr. Boer, our rector, called, and I sent for
you, you would not come."
"I don't like Mr. Boer," says Mona, "and it was not me he came to see."
"Still, there was no necessity to insult him with such a message as you
sent. Perhaps," with unpleasant meaning, "you do not understand that to
say you are busy is rather more a rudeness than an excuse for one's
non-appearance."
"It was true," says Mona: "I was writing letters for Geoffrey."
"Nevertheless, you might have waived that fact, and sent down word you
had a headache."
"But I hadn't a headache," says Mona, bending her large truthful eyes
with embarrassing earnestness upon Lady Rodney.
"Oh, if you were determined--" returns she, with a shrug.
"I was not determined: you mistake me," exclaims Mona, miserably. "I
simply hadn't a headache: I never had one in my life,--and I shouldn't
know how to get one!"
At this point, Geoffrey--who has been hunting all the morning--enters
the room with Captain Rodney.
"Why, what is the matter?" he says, seeing signs of the lively storm on
all their faces. Doatie explains hurriedly.
"Look here," says Geoffrey. "I won't have Mona spoiled. If she hadn't a
headache, she hadn't, you know, and if you were at home, why, you were,
and that's all about it. Why should she tell a lie about it?"
"What do you mean, Geoffrey?" demands his mother, with suppressed
indignation.
"I mean that she shall remain just as she is. The world may be 'given to
lying,' as Shakspeare tells us, but I will not have Mona tutored into
telling fashionable falsehoods," says this intrepid young man facing his
mother without a qualm of a passing dread. "A lie of any sort is base,
and a prevarication is only a mean lie. She is truthful, let her stay
so. Why should she learn it is the correct thing to say she is not at
home when she is, or that she is suffering from a foolish megrim when
she isn't? I don't suppose there is much harm in saying either of these
things, as nobody ever believes them; but--let her remain as she is."
"Is she also to learn that you are at liberty to lecture your own
mother?" asks Lady Rodney, pale with anger.
"I am not lecturing anyone," replies he, looking very like her, now that
his face has whitened a little and a quick fire has lit itself within
his eyes. "I am merely speaking against a general practice. 'Dare to be
true: nothing can need a lie,' is a line that always returns to me. And,
as I love Mona better than anything on earth, I shall make it the
business of my life to see she is not made unhappy by any one."
At this Mona lifts her head, and turns upon him eyes full of the
tenderest love and trust. She would have dearly liked to go to him, and
place her arms round his neck, and thank him with a fond caress for this
dear speech, but some innate sense of breeding restrains her.
Any demonstration on her part just now may make a scene, and scenes are
ever abhorrent. And might she not yet further widen the breach between
mother and son by an ill-timed show of affection for the latter?
"Still, sometimes, you know, it is awkward to adhere to the very letter
of the law," says Jack Rodney, easily. "Is there no compromise? I have
heard of women who have made a point of running into the kitchen-garden
when unwelcome visitors were announced, and so saved themselves and
their principles. Couldn't Mona do that?"
This speech is made much of, and laughed at for no reason whatever
except that Violet and Doatie are determined to end the unpleasant
discussion by any means, even though it may be at the risk of being
deemed silly. After some careful management they get Mona out of the
room, and carry her away with them to a little den off the eastern hall,
that is very dear to them.
"It is the most unhappy thing I ever heard of," begins Doatie,
desperately. "What Lady Rodney can see to dislike in you, Mona, I can't
imagine. But the fact is, she is hateful to you. Now, we," glancing at
Violet, "who are not particularly amiable, are beloved by her, whilst
you, who are all 'sweetness and light,' she detests most heartily."
"It is true," says Violet, evenly. "Yet, dear Mona, I wish you could try
to be a little more like the rest of the world."
"I want to very much," says poor Mona, her eyes filling with tears.
"But," hopelessly, "must I begin by learning to tell lies?" All this
teaching is very bitter to her.
"Lies! Oh, fie!" says Doatie. "Who tells lies? Nobody, except the
naughty little boys in tracts, and they always break their legs off
apple-trees, or else get drowned on a Sunday morning. Now, we are not
drowned, and our legs are uninjured. No, a lie is a horrid thing,--so
low, and in such wretched taste. But there are little social fibs that
may be uttered,--little taradiddles,--that do no harm to anybody, and
that nobody believes in, but all pretend to, just for the sake of
politeness."
Thus Doatie, looking preternaturally wise, but faintly puzzled at her
own view of the question.
"It doesn't sound right," says Mona, shaking her head.
"She doesn't understand," puts in Violet, quickly. "Mona, are you going
to see everybody that may choose to call upon you, good, bad, and
indifferent, from this till you die?"
"I suppose so," says Mona lifting her brows.
"Then I can only say I pity you," says Miss Mansergh, leaning back in
her chair, with the air of one who would say, "Argument here is in
vain."
"I sha'n't want to see them, perhaps," says Mona, apologetically, "but
how shall I avoid it?"
"Ah, now, that is more reasonable; now we are coming to it," says
Doatie, briskly. "We 'return to our muttons.' As Lady Rodney, in a very
rude manner, tried to explain to you, you will either say you are not at
home, or that you have a headache. The latter is not so good; it carries
more offence with it, but it comes in pretty well sometimes."
"But, as I said to Lady Rodney, suppose I haven't a headache," retorts
Mona, triumphantly.
"Oh, you are incorrigible!" says Doatie, leaning back in her chair in
turn, and tilting backward her little flower-like face, that looks as if
even the most harmless falsehood must be unknown to it.
"Could you not imagine you had one?" she says, presently as a last
resource.
"I could not," says Mona. "I am always quite well." She is standing
before them like a culprit called to the bar of justice. "I never had a
headache, or a toothache, or a nightmare, in my life."
"Or an umbrella, you should add. I once knew a woman like that, but she
was not like you," says Doatie. "Well, if you are going to be as literal
as you now are, until you call for your shroud, I must say I don't envy
you."
"Be virtuous and you'll be happy, but you won't have a good time,"
quotes Violet; "you should take to heart that latest of copy-book
texts."
"Oh, fancy receiving the Boers whenever they call!" says Doatie,
faintly, with a deep sigh that is almost a groan.
"I sha'n't mind it very much," says Mona, earnestly. "It will be after
all, only one half hour out of my whole day."
"You don't know what you are talking about," says Doatie, vehemently.
"Every one of those interminable half-hours will be a year off your
life. Mr. Boer is obnoxious, but Florence is simply insupportable. Wait
till she begins about the choir, and those hateful school-children, and
the parish subsidies; then you perhaps will learn wisdom, and grow
headaches if you have them not. Violet, what is it Jack calls Mr. Boer?"
"Better not remember it," says Violet, but she smiles as she calls to
mind Jack's apt quotation.
"Why not? it just suits him: 'A little, round, fat, oily man of----'"
"Hush, Dorothy! It was very wrong of Jack," interrupts Violet. But Mona
laughs for the first time for many hours--which delights Doatie.
"You and I appreciate Jack, if she doesn't, don't we, Mona?" she says,
with pretty malice, echoing Mona's merriment. After which the would-be
lecture comes to an end, and the three girls, clothing themselves in
furs, go for a short walk before the day quite closes in.