Rossmoyne

"Very well," says Miss Penelope, rising slowly – Oh! so slowly! thinks Monica – and going towards the davenport.

"Is the soldier outside, Timothy?" asks Miss Priscilla.

"Yes, miss. He said he wanted a bit of writing from ye for the captain."

"It is a long ride. Take him downstairs, Timothy, and give him some beer, while Miss Penelope prepares a reply."

"Begging your pardon, miss, and with due respect to ye, ma'am, but he's that stiff in his manners, an' tight in his clothes, I doubt if he'd condescend to enter the kitchen."

"Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, with much displeasure, "you have been having hot words with this stranger. What is it all about?"

"There's times, miss, as we all knows, when a worm will turn, and though I'm not a worm, ma'am, no more am I a coward, an' a red coat don't cover more flesh than a black; an' I'm an ould man, Miss Priscilla, to be called a buffer!"

It is apparent to every one that Timothy is nearly in tears.

"A buffer?" repeats Miss Priscilla, with dignity blended with disgust: she treats the word cautiously, as one might something noxious. "What is a buffer?"

Nobody enlightens her: though perhaps Terence might, were he not busily engaged trying to suppress his laughter behind a huge Japanese fan.

"Perhaps, Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, gravely, "as we all seem in ignorance about the real meaning of this extraordinary word, you are wrong in condemning it as an insult. It may be – er – a term of endearment."

At this Terence chokes, then coughs solemnly, and finally, lowering the fan, shows himself preternaturally grave, as a set-off against all suspicions.

"I wouldn't pin my faith to that, miss, if I was you," says Ryan, respectfully, but with a touch of the fine irony which is bred and born with his class in Ireland.

"Well, but as we cannot explain this word, Timothy, and you cannot, perhaps the best thing for you to do will be to go to the originator of it and ask him what he meant by it," says Miss Penelope, with quite astonishing perspicacity for her.

"Shure I did that same, miss. 'Twas the first thing I said to him, ma'am. 'What do ye mane, ye spalpeen, ye thief o' the world,' says I, 'by miscalling a dacent man out of his name like that?' says I. I gave him all that, miss, and a dale more, though I've forgotten it be now, for the Ryans was always famous for the gift o' the gab!"

"If you said all that to the poor marine, I think you gave him considerably more than you got," says Miss Penelope, "and so you may cry peace. Go down now, Timothy, and make it up with him over your beer."

Timothy, though still grumbling in an undertone death and destruction upon the hated Sassenach, retires duteously, closing the door behind him.

"Now, Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, with an air of relief, glancing at the pens and ink, at which Monica's heart fails her. She has no doubt whatever about the answer being a refusal, but a sad feeling that she dare make no protest renders her doubly sorrowful.

"Dear me!" says Miss Penelope, leaning back in her chair with pen well poised between her fingers, and a general air of pleased recollection full upon her, "it sounds quite like old times – doesn't it? – to be invited to the Barracks at Clonbree."

"Quite," says Miss Priscilla, with an amused smile.

"You remember when the Whiteboys were so troublesome, in our dear father's time, what life the officers stationed here then, threw into the country round. Such routs! such dances! such kettle-drums! You can still recollect Mr. Browne – can you not, Priscilla? – that fashionable young man!"

"You have the best right to remember him," returns Miss Priscilla, in a meaning tone. "It would be too ungrateful of you if you did not, considering what a life you led him."

And at this the two old ladies break into hearty laughter and shake their heads reproachfully at each other.

"You know you broke his heart," says Miss Priscilla.

"Tell us about it, auntie," says Kit, eagerly, who is always sympathetic where romance is concerned; but the old ladies only laugh the more at this, and Aunt Priscilla tells her how her Aunt Penelope was a very naughty girl in her time, and created havoc in the affections of all the young men that came within her reach.

All this delights Aunt Penelope, who laughs consumedly and makes feeble protest with her hands against this testimony.

"Poor fellow!" she says, sobering down presently, and looking quite remorseful. "It is unkind to laugh when his name is mentioned. He was killed in the Indian Mutiny, long afterwards, in a most gallant charge."

"Yes, indeed," says Miss Priscilla. "Well, well, things will happen. Go on with the answer now, Penelope, as the man is waiting and it is woefully late."

Monica trembles. But Kit starts into life.

"Oh, don't refuse, Aunt Priscilla!" she cries, darting from her seat and throwing her arms round Miss Blake's neck. "Don't, now! I do so want to go, when I have got my invitation, and all."

"But – " begins Miss Priscilla; whereupon Kit, tightening her hold on her neck, with a view to staying further objection, nearly strangles her.

"No 'buts,'" she says, entreatingly; "Remember how disappointed I was about Madam O'Connor's, and be good to me now."

"Bless the child!" breaks out Miss Priscilla, having rescued her windpipe and so saved herself from instant suffocation by loosening Kit's arms, and then drawing the child down upon her knee. "What is she talking about? who is going to refuse anything? Penelope, accept at once, —at once, or I shall be squeezed to death!"

"Then you will go?" exclaims Monica, joining the group near the davenport, and turning brilliant eyes upon her aunts. "Oh, I am so glad!"

"Why, we are dying to see the inside of the Barracks again, your aunt Penelope and I, especially your aunt Penelope," says Miss Blake, with a sly glance at her sister, who is plainly expecting it, "because she has tender recollections about her last visit there."

"Oh, now, Priscilla!" says Miss Penelope, modestly, but with keen enjoyment of the joke. After which an acceptance of his kind invitation is written to Captain Cobbett, and borne to him by the destroyer of Timothy's peace.

CHAPTER X

How Monica falls a prey to the green-eyed monster – How Mr. Kelly improves the shining hours – And how Brian Desmond suffers many things at the hands of his lady-love.

For the next few days the sun is conspicuous by its absence, and Jupiter Tonans, with all his noisy train, is abroad. There is nothing but rain everywhere and at all hours, and a certain chill accompanying it, that makes one believe (with "Elia," is it not?) that "a bad summer is but winter painted green."

The light is dimmed, the winds sigh heavily, all through these days, and on the hills around, "the hooded clouds, like friars, tell their beads in drops of rain."

But on Thursday evening it clears a little, – not sufficiently to allow one to wander happily through shrubbery or garden, but enough to augur well for the morrow, when the much longed for dance at the Barracks is due.

And, indeed, when Friday dawns all nature is glorious. O'er sea and land there floats a brightness indescribable, with no fleck or flaw upon its beauty. In every nook and glade and hollow is glad sunshine, and a soft rushing breeze that bids the heart rejoice, and uplift itself in joyous praise to the Great Power who calls the heavens His Throne.

Birds are singing upon every bough, to give the day "good-morrow," and the small streamlets, swollen by past rains, are chanting loud but soft harmonies to the water-pixies, as they dash headlong towards the river down below.

"No tearsDim the sweet look that Nature wears."

but rather a smile is on leaf, and flower, and waving bracken. And on Monica, too, as, with glad eyes and parted lips, she steps lightly into the shadow of the old porch at Moyne. No sweeter presence ever honored it. Leaning against one of the pillars, she steps forward, and gazes almost gratefully at the merry sunbeams, as they creep up in homage to her feet and then go swiftly back again.

She is dressed to-day in a pale blue batiste gown, that rivals in hue the delicate azure of the skies above her. Her large black hat is a mass of Spanish lace, her long gloves are of the same sombre shade, and so are her shoes, though relieved by buckles. With that smile upon her lips, and the subdued expectation in her eyes, she looks the personification of all that is tender, pure, and lovable.

"Are you ready?" asks Kit, joining her. "The carriage is coming round."

"Quite."

"All but your fan: where is that?"

"Ah! true; I forgot it. It must be on my table. I – "

"No, do not stir. I will get it for you. It would be a shame to send you on any errand that might destroy your present pose, you look so like a cloud, or a thing out of one of Kate Greenaway's books."

"It is very rude to call me a thing; it is disheartening, when I believed I was looking my best," says Monica, laughing. Somehow Kit's praises always please her.

Then the carriage does come round, and they all get into it, and start for their seven-miles drive, a very slow seven miles, at the end of which they find themselves in the small town of Clonbree, mounting the steep hill that leads to the Barracks, which are placed on almost unsavory eminence, – all the narrow streets leading up to them being lined with close cabins and tiny cabins that are anything but "sweets to the sweet."

Entering the small barrack-yard and finding a door hospitably open, the Misses Blake go up a wooden staircase, and presently find themselves on the landing-place above, where they are welcomed effusively by Mr. Ryde, who is looking bigger and hotter and stouter than usual.

Captain Cobbett in the largest room – there are but two available in these rustic barracks – is trying vainly to find a comfortable corner for old Lady Rossmoyne, who is both deaf and stupid, but who, feeling it her duty to support on all occasions (both festive and otherwise) the emissaries of her queen, has accepted this invitation and is now heartily sorry for her loyalty.

She is sitting in durance vile upon a low chair, with a carpet seat and a treacherous nature, that threatens to turn upon her and double her up at any moment if she dare to give way to even the smallest amount of natural animation: so perforce the poor old woman sits still, like "patience on a monument smiling at grief," and that her own grief, too, which, of course, is harder to bear!

"So glad you've come! We were quite in despair about you; but better late than never, eh?" says Mr. Ryde to Monica, with a fat smile. There is rather much of "too solid flesh" about his face.

"I daresay," says Monica, very vaguely: she is looking anxiously round her, hoping, yet dreading to see Desmond.

In the next room can be heard the sound of music. "My Queen" is being played very prettily upon a piano by somebody. Dancing is evidently going on, and Monica, who adores it, feels her toes trembling in her shoes.

"May I have the pleasure of this?" says Mr. Ryde. "I've kept it for you all along, you know. If you tell me you have already given it away, I shall feel myself aggrieved indeed."

"Was there ever so silly a young man?" thinks Monica, and then she says aloud, "No, it is not promised," and lets him place his arm round her, and reluctantly mingles with the other dancers. To do him justice, he waltzed very well, this fat young marine, so it cannot be said that she has altogether a bad time, and she certainly feels a little glow of pleasure as she pauses presently to recover her breath.

As she does so, her eyes rest on Desmond. He, too, is dancing, and with Olga Bohun. He is whispering to his partner, who is whispering back to him in a somewhat pronounced fashion, and altogether he is looking radiantly happy, and anything but the disconsolate swain Monica has been picturing him to herself. He is smiling down at Olga, and is apparently murmuring all sorts of pretty things into her still prettier ear, because they both look quite at peace with each other and all the world.

A pang shoots through Monica's heart. He can be as happy, then, with one pretty woman as with another! She by no means, you will see, depreciates her own charms. All he wants is to have "t'other dear charmer away."

At this moment she encounters his eyes, and answers his glad stare of surprise with a little scornful lowering of her lids. After which, being fully aware that he is still watching her in hurt amazement, she turns a small, pale, but very encouraging face up to Ryde, and says, prettily, —

"You said I was late, just now. Was I?"

"Very. At least it seemed so to me," says Ryde with heavy adoration in his glance.

Feeling, rather than seeing, that Mr. Desmond has brought his fair companion to an anchor close behind her, Monica says, in a soft sweet voice, —

"I didn't mean to be late. No, indeed! I hurried all I could; but my aunts are slow to move. I was longing to be here, but they would make no haste."

"You really longed to be here?" asks he, eagerly. "Well, that was good of you! And now you have come you will be kind to me, won't you? You will give me all the dances you can spare?"

"That would be a great many," says she, laughing a little. "You might tire of me if I said yes to that. The fact is, I know nobody here, and certainly there is no one I care to dance with."

"You will have another tale to tell later on," returns he, gazing with unrepressed admiration at her charming face. "Before the avalanche of worshippers descends, promise me all the waltzes."

"Are my dances, then, so necessary to you?" with a swift upward glance.

"They are, at all events, the only ones I care for," returns he, clumsily, but heartily. "All the others will lie in the scale with duty."

"'Every subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's soul is his own,'" quotes Monica, lightly. "Why dance unless you wish it?"

"Because my soul is not my own," responds he, with a sigh. "I am bound to dance with every undanceable woman here to-day, or they will go home and revile me. You ought to be sorry for me if you aren't."

"Well, I am," says Monica; "and so you shall have every waltz on the programme."

With this she lets him take her in his arms again, and float away with her to the strains of the waltz then playing, and far away from Desmond's jealous ears.

"Well, I had no idea it was in her," says Mrs. Bohun, in a breathless sort of manner, when Monica has quite vanished. "All that was meant for you, you know; and how well she did it!"

"But why should it be meant for me? What have I done that she should so ill use me?" says Desmond, also breathless. "And you speak of her as if you admired her and she ought to be praised for her conduct when you have just heard from my own lips how devotedly I am attached to her!"

"I cannot help admiring genius when I see it," says Olga, with a gay laugh. "She made up her mind – naughty little thing! – to make you miserable a minute ago, and – she succeeded. What can compare with success! But in very truth, Brian," tapping his arm familiarly with her fan (an action Monica notes from the other side of the room), "I would see you a victor too, and in this cause. She is as worthy of you as you of her, and a fig for one's cousins and sisters and aunts, when Cupid leads the way."

She has thrown up her head, and is looking full of spirit, when young Ronayne, approaching her, says, smiling, —

"This is our dance, I think, Mrs. Bohun?"

"Is it? So far so good!" She turns again to Brian:

"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" she says, warningly.

"I cannot accuse myself of any feebleness of that sort," says Desmond, gloomily. "As you see, it all rests with her."

"Perhaps she is afraid of the family feud," says Olga, laughing. "One hears such a lot about this Blake-Desmond affair that I feel I could take the gold medal if examined about it. There! – what nonsense! Go and speak to her, and defy those dear old ladies at Moyne."

"You were talking about that pretty Miss Beresford?" says Ronayne, as Brian moves away.

"Yes. But, sir," archly, "dare you see beauty in any woman when I am by?"

"Oh that I could see you really jealous, and of me!" returns he, half sadly, looking at her with longing eyes. "If I thought I could make your heart ache for even one short minute, I should be the happiest man alive."

"Boy, you mean! Oh, traitor! And would you have me miserable for your own gratification?"

"It would be for yours later on. For that one moment you would gain a slave forever."

"And unless I am wretched for that one moment, I cannot gain my slave?"

"You know the answer to that only too well," returns he, with so much fervor that she refuses to continue the discussion.

"Talking of jealousy," she says, lightly, with a glance at him, "it is the dream of my life to make Rossmoyne jealous, – to reduce him to absolute submission. He is so cold, so precise, so English, that it would be quite a triumph to drag him at one's chariot-wheels. Shall I be able to do it?" she turns up her charming face to his, as though in question. She is looking her very sweetest, and is tenderly aware of the fact; and, indeed, so is he.

"I suppose so," he says, in answer to her, but slowly and reproachfully.

"But I must have help," says Olga. "Some one must help me. You? – is it not?"

"I?" with strong emphasis. "What should I have to do with it?"

"Not much, yet I count upon you. Why, who do you think I am going to make him jealous about? Eh?"

"How should I know?"

"How shouldn't you? Why it is of you, —you!" with quite a delicious little laugh. "So you will have to dance round after me all day for the future until your mission is fulfilled, and try to look as if you really loved me."

"You have mistaken your man," says Ronayne, quietly: "you must get some one else to help you in this matter. It is not for me, even if I did not love you; I should scorn so low a task."

"Love is an idle word," she says, her eyes flashing.

"It may be – to some. But I tell you no man's heart is of so poor value that it can be flung hither and thither at any one's pleasure, – no, not even at the pleasure of the woman he adores. You will seek some more complaisant lover to be your dupe on this occasion. I decline the office."

"You forget how you speak, sir!" she says, proudly; yet even as she gives way to this angry speech a gleam of deepest admiration so lights her eyes that she is obliged to let her lids fall over them to cover the tell-tales beneath; her breath comes and goes quickly.

Something like relief comes to her when Lord Rossmoyne, stretching his long neck round the curtain that half shields the cushioned recess of the window where they are sitting, says, with considerable animation, for him, —

"Ah! so I have found you, Mrs. Bohun."

"You have indeed, and in good time. I am pining in prison, but you have come to deliver me."

"If I may."

"Such a dreary little spot, is it not? I don't know what could have induced me to enter it."

"Ronayne possibly," says Rossmoyne, with an unpleasant smile.

"Oh, dear, no!" contemptuously: "I came here of my own free will. We all do foolish things at times, I have not danced this last because Mr. Ronayne prefers pleasant converse. I don't. I thought you would never come to seek me. What were you doing?"

"Hunting for you, and thinking every minute an hour. These curtains" – touching them – "were jealous of you, and sought to hide you."

"Well, don't be so long next time," she says, looking up at him with a smile that a little more pressure would make tender and laying her hand on his arm.

She moves away. Ronayne, drawing his breath somewhat savagely, sits down on the sill of the window and gazes blankly into the barrack-yard below. He has still her programme in his hand, and is crumpling it unconscionably, hardly knowing what he does. But, if disturbed in mind, it is always such a comfort to smash something, be it a piece of pasteboard or one's most intimate friend.

She had forgotten her card, probably, and now it is almost useless. Ronayne's heart is full of bitterness, and he tries to swear to himself that for the future he will cleanse his heart of this coquette, who cares no more for him – nay, far less – than she does for her little toy terrier. Yet, even as these stern resolves seek vainly to root themselves in his breast, his eyes turn again to the room beyond, and make search for the siren who is his undoing. She is still, of course, with Rossmoyne, and is all smiles and pretty blushes, and is evidently both content and happy.

"I am a fool! – a madman!" he says to himself; and even as he says it his eyes light on Owen Kelly, who by chance is looking at him too.

Crossing the room, the latter (as though drawn by the melancholy eyes that have met his) soon reaches the window where Ronayne stands disconsolate.

"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" he says gayly, but with so kindly an intonation that even the most pugnacious could not take umbrage at it.

Now, Mr. Kelly's knowledge on all matters is so clear and precise that Ronayne does not dream of deceiving him in this matter.

"Of course you will laugh at me," he says, "but somehow I don't mind your ridicule much. It means only this, that I have just found out that she cares nothing at all for me."

"She, being Mrs. Bohun? Well, my dear lad, if an elderly gentleman's experience is of any use to you, you may have it cheap. I believe she cares a great deal for you. Lookers-on see most of the game, and I would back you against Rossmoyne any day."

"You are a very good fellow," says Ulic Ronayne, "the best I know; but I understand you. You are only saying that to console me."

"I am not, in faith: I say it because I think it."

"I wish I could think it."

"Try. 'If at first you don't succeed,' you know follow out the inestimable Watts's advice, and 'try again.' There's nothing like it: it gets to be quite a game in the long run. I thank my stars," laughing, "I have never been a slave to the 'pathetic fallacy' called love; yet it has its good points, I suppose."

"It hasn't," says Ronayne, gloomily.

"You terrify me," says Mr. Kelly, "because I feel positive my day is yet to come, and with all this misery before me I feel suicidal. Don't my dear fellow! don't look like that! Give her up; go and fall in love with some little girl of your own age or even younger."

The "even" is offensive, but Ulic is too far gone in melancholy to perceive it.

"It is too late for that kind of advice," he says: "I want her, and her only. I don't know how to describe it, but – "

"There are chords," quotes his friend gravely.

"Just so," says the miserable Ronayne, quite as gravely; which so upsets the gravity of his companion that it is with difficulty he conceals his ill-timed mirth.

"What is that mutilated article in your hand?" he asks at length, when he has conquered his muscles.

"This – eh! – oh, her card, I suppose," says Ronayne, viciously. Yet even as he speaks he smooths out the crumpled card, and regards it with a dismal tenderness as being in part her.

"You're engaged to her for the next," says Mr. Kelly, looking over his shoulder: "what an unfortunate thing! If I were you," mournfully, "I should go home. Get ill. Do something."

"And so let her think I'm wasting in despair because she prefers another? No, I shan't," says Ronayne, with sudden animation. "I shall see it out with her. If she chooses to cancel this dance well and good, but I shall certainly remind her she promised it to me."

"Rash boy!" says Kelly, with a sigh. "As you refuse to hearken to the voice of common sense, and afflict yourself with a megrim, I leave you to your fate."

So saying, he turns aside, and, having gone a step or two, finds himself face to face with Miss Beresford.

"This dance is ours," he says, mendaciously, knowing well this is the first time they have met this evening.

Monica laughs: to be angry with so sad a visaged man as Owen Kelly would be a cruelty.