How Miss Priscilla is driven to enter Coole--How she there receives
an important proposal, but with much fortitude declines it--And how
The Desmond suffers more from a twinge of conscience than from a
bullet.
In the morning, a certain amount of constraint prevails with every one.
Kit is, of course, aware of all that has happened, and of the day's
expected visitor for Monica, who has refused to come down to breakfast,
and who is as unsettled and miserable as she well can be. Kit has
espoused her cause _con amore_, and is (I need hardly say) ready for
open war at a moment's notice. She has indeed arranged a plan of action
that will bring her on the battle-field at a critical moment to deliver
a speech culled from some old novels in her room and meant to reduce
both her aunts to annihilation.
When breakfast is over she disappears to study her part afresh, and the
Misses Blake, too, separate and go to their own rooms, with an air of
careful unconcern, that would not have imposed upon a one-year babe.
When again they reappear, they seem desirous of avoiding each other's
glances, whereupon it occurs suddenly to everybody that they have both
put on their very best silk gowns and lace caps, and have in fact got
themselves up with elaborate care to receive--a _Desmond_! No wonder
they are ashamed of themselves!
Still keeping up the outward symptoms of supreme indifference, they seat
themselves in the drawing-room, Miss Penelope attacking her knitting
with tremendous vigor, whilst Miss Priscilla gets apparently lost in the
pages of "Temple Bar." Monica, sliding in presently like a small ghost,
in her clinging white gown, slips into a seat in the window that
overlooks the avenue, and hides herself and her pretty anxious face
behind the lace curtains.
An hour glides by with aggravating slowness; and then a sound of wheels
upon the gravel makes Monica's heart beat almost to suffocation. The two
Misses Blake, suddenly forgetful of their _role_ of unconcern, start
from their seats and go to the window where Monica now is standing. A
brougham and pair of horses drive up to the door, and a young man,
opening the door, springs to the ground. It is Desmond.
"To come here in a close carriage!" says Miss Priscilla, with much
contempt. "Is he afraid of catching cold, I wonder? I never heard of
such foppery in my life."
"He is not a fop," says Monica, indignantly, and then she catches sight
of her lover's face, and something in it awakes within her a prescience
of coming evil.
Then the drawing-room door is thrown open with rather unceremonious
haste, and the young man, entering, goes straight to where Miss
Priscilla is standing, merely taking and holding Monica's hand as he
reaches her, but addressing to her neither word nor look. He seems
greatly agitated, and altogether unlike the man who stood here yesterday
and almost defied them. His face is very pale, and full of honest grief
and indignation.
"My uncle is at death's doors," he says in a voice that quivers with
rage and excitement. "Coming home late last night he was shot at by some
ruffians from behind the blackthorn hedge on the Coole road. He wants
you Miss Blake" (to Priscilla). "He is asking for you. You will not
refuse to come to a man who may be dying for all we know! I have
brought the carriage for you, and I implore you not to delay, but to
come to him at once."
Miss Priscilla has sunk into a chair, and is quite colorless; Miss
Penelope clasps her hands.
"Oh, poor George!" she says, involuntarily, almost unconsciously. His
present danger has killed remembrance of all the angry years that stand
between to-day and the time when last she called him by his Christian
name.
"When did it happen? How?" asks Monica, tightening her fingers round
his, and trembling visibly.
"About ten o'clock last evening. Both Kelly and I were with him, and a
groom. Two shots were fired. Kelly and I jumped off the dog-cart and
gave chase and succeeded in securing one of them. There were four
altogether, I think. We did not know my uncle was wounded when we ran
after them, but when we came back we found Murray the groom holding him
in his arms. He was quite insensible. I left Kelly and Murray to guard
our prisoner, and drove my uncle home myself. He is very badly hurt.
Miss Blake," turning again to Miss Priscilla, "you will come with me?"
"Oh, yes, yes," says Miss Priscilla, faintly.
"And I shall go with you, my dear Priscilla," says Miss Penelope,
heroically. "Yes, you will want me. To find yourself face to face with
him after all these years of estrangement and in so sad a state will be
distressing. It is well I should be on the spot to lend you some
support."
Miss Priscilla lays her hand on her arm.
"I think I shall go alone, Penelope," she says, falteringly. For one
moment Miss Penelope is a little surprised, and then in another moment
she is not surprised at all. But I believe in her heart she is a good
deal disappointed: there is a flavor of romance and excitement about
this expedition she would gladly have tasted.
"Well, perhaps it will be better so," she says, amiably. "I am glad he
has sent for you. He will be the easier for _your_ forgiveness, though
he cannot obtain _hers_, now. Come upstairs: you should not keep Mr.
Desmond waiting." There is a kindly light in her eyes as she glances at
the young man. And then she takes Miss Priscilla away to her room, and
helps her carefully with her toilet, and accepts the situation as a
matter of course, though in her secret soul she is filled with amazement
at The Desmond's sending for Miss Priscilla even though lying at death's
door.
And indeed when the old man had turned to Brian and asked him to bring
Miss Blake to Coole, Brian himself had known surprise too, and some
misgivings. Was he going to make her swear never to give her consent to
his (Brian's) marriage with her niece? or was he going to make open
confession of that dishonorable action which caused Miss Blake's pretty
stepsister to suffer dire tribulation, according to the gossips round?
"I should like to see Priscilla Blake," the old squire had said, in a
low whisper, his nephew leaning over him to catch the words, and then he
had muttered something about "old friends and forgiveness," that had not
so easily been understood.
"You shall see her," the younger man says, tenderly. "I'll go for her
myself. I am sure she won't refuse to come."
"_Refuse!_" There is something in the squire's whisper that puzzles
Brian.
"I am certain she will not," he repeats, mechanically, whilst trying to
translate it. But the look has faded from the old man's face, and his
tone is different, when he speaks again.
"If she is afraid to come," he says, generously, having evidently
settled some knotty point of inward discussion to his entire
satisfaction, "tell her from me that I am ready and willing to forgive
_all_."
"You mean you are anxious to obtain her forgiveness," says Brian, with
the kindly intention of assisting the old man's wandering imagination.
"Eh?" says the squire, sharply. "What d'ye mean, Brian? Speak, lad, when
I desire you."
"Look here, George! if you excite yourself like this, you know what the
consequences will be," says Brian, sharply, in his turn. "I only meant
that, as you--er--jilted their stepsister, I suppose you are anxious to
obtain their pardon, now you feel yourself pretty low. But I'd advise
you to wait and see about that when you have recovered your strength a
little."
"And you believed that old story too!" says the poor squire, forlornly.
"I didn't jilt her at all, Brian. _It was she jilted me!_"
"_What!_" says Brian, turning to see if the bullet had touched his brain
instead of his ribs.
"'Tis true. I tell you, that girl broke my heart. She was the prettiest
creature I ever saw, with soft dove's eyes, and a heavenly smile, and no
more heart than _that_," striking the post of the old-fashioned bedstead
with his uninjured arm. "I gave myself up to her, I worshipped the very
ground she walked on, and within a fortnight of our wedding she calmly
wrote to tell me she could not marry me!"
"Giving a reason?"
"No. Even _she_, I presume, could not summon sufficient courage to tell
the wretch she had deluded of her love for another. She gave me no
reason. She entreated me, however, to keep silence about the real author
of the breach between us,--that is, herself. _I_ was the one to break
off our engagement! I was to bear all the blame! She implored me to
conceal her share in it, and finally demanded of me, as a last favor,
that I would give the world to understand I had thrown _her_ over."
"A charmingly disinterested specimen of womankind," says Brian, raising
his brows.
"And this to _me_," says The Desmond, an indignant sob making his weak
voice weaker,--"a man who had always kept himself straight in the eyes
of the world. I was required to represent myself as a low, despicable
fellow, one of those who seek a woman's affections only to ignore them
at the sight of the next pretty face."
"But you refused to comply with her request?" says Brian, hastily.
"No, sir, I didn't," says the squire, shame struggling with his
excitement. "On the contrary, I gave in to her in every respect. I
believe at that time I would cheerfully have allowed myself to be
branded as a _thief_ if she had desired it and if it would have saved
her one scrap of discomfort. She was afraid of her sisters, you see. I
blamed them then, Brian, but I think now her fear of them arose from the
fact that _they_ were as true as _she_ was----Well, well!"
"This is indeed a revelation," says Brian.
"Yes; you wouldn't think they would behave like that, would you?" says
Mr. Desmond, eagerly.
"Who? The Misses Blake?" says Brian, startled.
"Yes. It wasn't like them to keep silent all these years, and let me
bear the brunt of the battle, when they knew I was innocent and that it
was their own flesh and blood who was in fault. Yet they turned their
backs upon me, and have treated me ever since as though I were in
reality the miscreant they have succeeded in making me out."
"There is a terrible mistake somewhere," says Brian. "They do verily
believe you to be the miscreant you describe."
"Brian, come here!" says the old man, in an ominously calm tone. "Do you
mean to tell me Priscilla Blake believes me guilty of having behaved
dishonestly to her sister Katherine? You positively think this?"
"I _know_ it," says Brian, who feels it is better to get out the plain
unvarnished truth at once.
"You have no doubt? Think, Brian; think."
"I needn't.--There is no doubt on my mind."
"Then she deceived us _all_," says the squire, in a stricken tone. Then
he roused himself again. He seems to have recovered his strength
wonderfully during the past hour. "Go, get me Priscilla Blake," he says.
"Hurry, boy! hurry! I must make it right with her before I die."
"Before you recover, you mean," says Brian, cheerily. "There! lie down
now, and keep yourself quiet, or you won't be looking your best when she
comes."
* * * * *
And now Miss Priscilla has come, and is standing beside the bed of her
quondam friend, looking down upon him with dim eyes.
"I am sorry to meet you again like this, George Desmond," she says, at
last, in tones meant to be full of relentless displeasure, but which
falter strangely.
"She made as great a fool of _you_ as of _me_, Priscilla," is the
squire's answer, whose tired mind can only grasp one thought,--the
treachery of the woman he had loved! And then it all comes out, and the
letter the false Katherine had written him is brought out from a little
secret drawer, bound round with the orthodox blue ribbon, and smelling
sadly of dust, as though to remind one of all things, of warmest
sweetest love, of truest trust, and indeed of that fair but worthless
body from whose hand it came, now lying mouldering and forgotten in a
foreign land.
"Oh, I wouldn't have believed it of her!" says Miss Priscilla, weeping
bitterly. "But there must have been something wrong with her always,
though we could never see it. What an angel face she had! But the
children, they speak terribly of her, and they say--that she--and James
Beresford--did not get on at all."
"Eh?" says the squire. He rises himself on his sound elbow, and quite a
glow of color rushes into his pallid cheeks. When, with a groan of
self-contempt, he sinks back again, and the light in his eye (was it of
satisfaction?) dies.
"You have met Brian," he says presently. "What do you think of him,
Priscilla? He is a good lad,--a _very_ good lad."
"He looks it," says Miss Priscilla, shortly.
"He does," heartily. "Well, I'm told this boy of mine is in love with
your girl."
"Who told you?" says Miss Priscilla.
"Brian himself," says the Squire.
"I like that in him," says Miss Priscilla. "Well, George, if you will
look upon that as settled, so shall I."
"So be it," says the squire--"Eh, my dear? but doesn't it make us feel
old to be discussing the love-affairs of these young things, when it
seems only yesterday that we--that you and I, Priscilla----"
"That is all buried long ago: don't rake it up. It died when first your
eyes fell on _her_," says Miss Blake, hurriedly.
"I was a fool," says the squire. "But, somehow, since I have been
talking to you, I don't think I'm going to die this time, and old scenes
came back to me, and--I suppose it is too late now, Priscilla?"
There is no mistaking his meaning.
"Oh, yes; a whole lifetime too late," says Miss Priscilla, with a soft,
faint blush that would not have misbecome a maiden in her teens. "But I
am glad we are friends again, George."
She pressed his hand with real affection, and then colors again warmly,
as though afraid of having discovered herself in the act of committing
an indiscretion. Could that gentle pressure be called forward, or light,
or unseemly? Terrible thought!
"So am I, my dear," says the squire. And then again, "You won't think of
it, then, Priscilla?"
"No, no," says Miss Blake, feeling flattered at his persistence, and
then she actually laughs out loud, and The Desmond laughs too, though
feebly; and then the doctor comes in again, and Miss Priscilla goes
home, to tell Miss Penelope, in the secrecy of her chamber, and with the
solemnity that befits the occasion, all about the squire's proposal, its
reception, and its rejection.
Be assured no minutest detail is forgotten; Miss Penelope is soon in
possession of every smallest look and word connected with it, and deeply
gratifying is the manner in which the great news is received by that
gentle maiden.
"Though late in the day, Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, as a sort of
wind-up to her recital, "it was an offer of marriage _any_ woman might
be proud of, be she young or old; and he _meant_ it, too. He was quite
_pressing_. Twice he asked me, although my first was a most decided
'No.'"
"It seems terrible, your having been so cold to him, poor fellow!" says
Miss Penelope, with a regretful sigh for the griefs of the rejected
Desmond.
"What could I do?" says Miss Priscilla, with an air of self-defence.
This thought, that she can actually be accused of having treated the
sterner sex in a hardhearted fashion, is cakes and ale to her.
"We must not talk of this, Penelope," she says, presently. "It would be
unfair. It must never transpire through _us_ that George Desmond laid
his heart and fortune at my feet only to be rejected."
To her these old-world phrases sound grand and musical and full of fire
and sentiment.
"No, no," says Miss Penelope, acquiescing freely, yet with a sigh; she
would have dearly liked to tell her gossips of this honor that has been
done her dear Priscilla. And, after all, she has her wish, for the story
gets about, spread by the hero of it himself.
The squire, tired, no doubt, of keeping secrets, and perhaps (but this
in a whisper) grateful to her because of her refusal, goes about
everywhere, and tells people far and near of his offer; so that when
their friends flock to Moyne, and, giving The Desmond as their authority
for it, accuse Miss Priscilla of her refusal, and she still, with
maidenly modesty, parries their questions, Miss Penelope, feeling
herself absolved from further reticence, comes to the front and gives
them a full and true account of the wonderful event.
"Yes, Priscilla might indeed have reigned as queen at Coole had she so
wished it, and well graced the position too," winds up Miss Penelope, on
all these occasions, with much pride and dignity.
Brian, who had been busy all the morning swearing informations, and so
forth, with Mr. Kelly and the groom, before magistrates and others,
coming into his uncle's room about half an hour after Miss Blake's
departure, finds him considerably better both in mind and in body,
though feeble in spirit, as is only natural. Indeed, the bullet had done
him little harm, causing merely a flesh-wound, but the shock had been
severe to a man of his years.
"Come here, Brian; I want to tell you something," he says, as the young
man leans over him.
"You are not to talk," says his nephew, peremptorily.
"If you won't listen to me, I'll send for Bailey, the steward," says the
squire. "Nonsense! it does me good." And then he tells him all the
particulars of Miss Priscilla's visit relating to his engagement with
Katherine Beresford, with one reservation.
"It is all right between us now," he says, in a pleased tone. "She told
me everything, and it appears we were both sadly taken in, though I
don't wish to say anything against her even now. I daresay she had her
own grievances, poor soul; and indeed Priscilla said----"
Here he pauses, and a guilty flush covers his pale face. He hesitates,
and then beckons Brian to come even nearer.
"Look you, lad! I'm not quite at ease even yet. There's something wrong
here!" laying his hand upon his heart.
"Is it pain?" asks his nephew, anxiously. "I told you you were talk----"
"No, no, boy. It's only mental pain. I want to be ashamed of myself, and
I _can't_. I'm feeling a satisfaction about something that I shouldn't.
It's not right, Brian. It's not a gentlemanly feeling, but I can't curb
it. The more I think of it, the more pleased I feel. Eh? You don't look
as if you understood me."
"I don't, much," confesses Brian, seating himself on the edge of the
bed. "You see, you haven't told me what it is all about."
"It is about Katherine Beresford. Priscilla told me, and I should like
to tell you. I say, Brian, you won't throw it in my teeth, now, when I'm
better, eh?"
"I swear I won't," says Brian.
"Well, she told me Katherine had a regular _devil_ of a life with her
husband, and _I'm glad of it_! _There!_" says the squire; after which
disgraceful confession he regularly scrambles under the bedclothes, with
a view to hiding his shame and his exultation from public view.
Brian fairly roars with laughter. At the sound of his welcome mirth, the
old man slowly emerges from the sheets again, and looks at him
doubtfully, but with growing hope.
"_She_ had the best of it, of course; any one would have the best of it
with James Beresford," he says. "But she couldn't have been altogether
comfortable; that's what I mean. I don't want you to think I should
rejoice at her having received bad treatment at her husband's hands. He
had all the bad treatment to himself, I expect."
"So do I," says Brian, who is laughing still.
"And you don't think so badly of me for it?" says the Squire, anxiously.
"Not I," says Brian.
"Still, it's rather a mean sort of feeling, isn't it, now? It's very
low--eh?"
"Low or not," says Brian, with decision, "I'm perfectly certain if it
was _my_ case I should feel just like that myself."
"You're the comfort of my life, Brian," says his uncle, gratefully; and
then he indulges in a covert smile himself, after which he drops off
into a slumber, sound and refreshing.