Rossmoyne

Miss Priscilla has now been seized upon by Madam O'Connor and carried off for a private confab.

"And you really must let her come to us for a week, my dear," says Madam O'Connor, in her fine rich brogue. "Yes, now, really I want her. It will be quite a favor. I can't withstand a pretty face, as you well know 'tis a weakness of mine, my dear, and she is really a pearl. Olga Bohun is talking of getting up tableaux or some such nonsense, and she wants your pretty child to help us."

"I should like her to go to you. It is very kind of you," says Miss Priscilla, but with unmistakable hesitation.

"Now, what is it? Out with it, Priscilla!" says Madam O'Connor, bluntly.

Miss Priscilla struggles with herself for yet another minute, and then says, quickly, —

"That young man Desmond, – will he be staying in your house?"

"Not if you object, my dear," says Mrs. O'Connor, kindly; "though I do think it is a pity to thwart that affair. He is as nice and as pleasant a young fellow as I know, and would make a jewel of a husband; and money – say what you like, my dear Priscilla – is always something. It ranks higher than revenge."

"There is no revenge. It is only a just resentment."

"Well, I'll call it by any name you like, my dear, but I must say – "

"I must beg, Gertrude, you will not discuss this unhappy subject," says Miss Priscilla, with some agitation.

"Well, I won't, there. Then let it lie," says Madam O'Connor, good-humoredly. "And tell me, now, if I come over to fetch Monica on Monday, will she be ready for me?"

"Quite ready. But we have not consulted her yet," says Miss Priscilla, clinging to a broken reed.

"Olga is talking to her about it. And, if she's the girl she looks, she'll be glad of a change, and the chance of a sweetheart," says Madam O'Connor, gayly.

"What lovely lilies!" says Mrs. Bohun, standing before a tall white group.

"Oh, don't!" says Owen Kelly, who has joined her and Monica. "Whenever I hear a lily mentioned I think of Oscar Wilde, and it hurts very much."

"I like Oscar Wilde. He is quite nice, and very amusing," says Olga.

"I wonder if I could make my hair grow," says Mr. Kelly, meditatively. "He's been very clever about his; but I suppose somebody taught him."

"Well, I think long hair is dirty," says Mrs. Bohun, with an abstracted glance at Ronayne's lightly-shaven head.

Then, as though tired of her sweet role and of its object (Ronayne) and everything, she turns capriciously aside, and, motioning away the men with her hand and a small frown, sits down at Hermia Herrick's feet and plucks idly at the grasses near her.

"So we are dismissed," says Kelly, shrugging his shoulders. Monica has disappeared long ago with the devoted Ryde. "Your queen has her tempers, Ronayne."

"There are few things so cloying as perfection," says Ronayne, loyally.

"I entirely agree with you, – so much so that I hope Providence will send me an ugly wife. She – I beg your pardon – Mrs. Bohun does pretty much what she likes with you, doesn't she?"

"Altogether what she likes. She's been doing it for so long now that I suppose she'll go on to the end of the chapter. I hope it will be a long one. Do you know," says the young man, with a rather sad little laugh, "it sounds of course rather a poor thing to say, but I really think it makes me happy, being done what she likes with?"

"It is only to oblige a friend that I should seek to understand such a hopelessly involved sentence as that," says Mr. Kelly, wearily. "But I have managed it. You're as bad a case as ever I came across, Ronayne, and I pity you. But, 'pon my soul, I respect you too," with a flash of admiration: "there is nothing like being thoroughly in earnest. And so I wish you luck in your wooing."

"You're a very good fellow, Kelly," says Ronayne gratefully.

In the mean time, Olga, tiring of tearing her grasses to pieces, looks up at Hermia.

"How silent you are!" she says.

"I thought that was what you wanted, – silence. You have been talking all day. And, besides, if I speak at all, it will be only to condemn."

"Nevertheless speak. Anything is better than this ghastly quiet; and, besides, frankly, I need not mind you, you know."

"You are flirting disgracefully with that Ronayne boy."

"What harm, if he is a boy?"

"He is not such a boy as all that comes to; and, if you don't mean it, you are overkind to him."

"He is my baby," says Olga, with a little laugh; "I often tell him so. Why should I not be kind to him?"

"Oh, if you are bent on it."

"I am bent on nothing. You do run away so with things!"

"I think you might do better."

"I'm not going to do anything," says the widow. She throws off her hat, and ruffles up all her pretty pale gold hair with impatient fingers.

"Oh! if you can assure me of that!"

"I don't want to assure you of anything."

"So I thought. That is why I say you might do better."

"I might do worse, too."

"Perhaps. But still I cannot forget there was Wolverhampton last year. A title is not to be despised; and he was devoted to you, and would, I think, have made a good husband."

"I daresay. He was fool enough for anything. And I liked him, rather; but there was something in him – wasn't there, now, Hermia? – something positively enraging at times."

"I suppose, then, your fancy for young Ronayne arises from the fact that there is nothing in him," says Hermia, maliciously: "that's his charm, is it?"

Mrs. Bohun laughs.

"I don't suppose there is very much in him," she says: "that in itself is such a relief. Wolverhampton was so overpowering about those hydraulics. Ulic isn't a savant, certainly, and I don't think he will ever set the Liffey afire, but he is 'pleasant too to think on.' Now, mind you, I don't believe I care a pin about Ulic Ronayne, – he is younger than I am, for one thing, – but still I don't care to hear him abused."

"I am not abusing him," says Hermia. "It was you said he was no savant, and would be unlikely to set the Liffey afire."

"For which we should be devoutly grateful," says Olga, frivolously. "Consider, if he could, what the consequences would be, both to life and property. Poor young man! I really think Government ought to give him a pension because he can't."

"And what about all the other young men?" asks Hermia. And then she yawns.

Here Monica – who has been absent with Mr. Ryde for the best part of an hour – comes up to them, and presently Terence, with the Fitzgeralds, and Miss Priscilla and Lord Rossmoyne.

"I heard a story yesterday I want to tell you," says Terence, gayly, singling out Miss Fitzgerald and Olga, and sinking upon the grass at the former's feet. He is such a handsome merry boy that he is a favorite with all the women. Miss Priscilla stands near him; the others are all conversing together about the coming plays at Aghyohillbeg.

"It is about the curate," says Terence, gleefully. "You know, he is awful spoons on the ugliest French girl, and the other day he wanted to run up to Dublin to get her a ring, or something, but – "

"Now, Terence, dear, surely that is not the way to pronounce that word," says Miss Priscilla, anxiously; "such a vulgar pronounciation – 'bu-ut.' How you drawled it! How ugly it sounds – 'bu-ut!' Now put your lips together like mine, so, and say 'but,' shortly. Now begin your story again, and tell it nicely."

Terence begins again, —very good humoredly, thinks Olga, – and has almost reached the point, when Miss Priscilla breaks in again:

"Now, not so fast, my dear Terence. I really cannot follow you at all. I don't even understand what you are at. Gently, my dear boy. Now begin it all over again, and be more explicit."

But the fun is all out of Terence by this time, though Olga is so convulsed with laughter that it might have been the best story on record, which somewhat astonishes though it consoles Terence, as when his funny incident is related in a carefully modulated voice, and with a painful precision, it strikes even him as being hopelessly uninteresting. However, Mrs. Bohun certainly enjoys it, – or something else, perhaps: fortunately, it never occurs to Terry to ponder on the "something else."

"Hermia, Olga, come now, my dears. You can't stay here for ever, you know," cries Madam O'Connor's loud but cheery voice. "It is nearly seven. Come, I tell you, or the Misses Blake, our good friends here, will think we mean to take up our residence at Moyne for good."

"Oh, now, Gertrude!" says Miss Priscilla, much shocked. But Madam O'Connor only laughs heartily, and gives her a little smart blow on the shoulder with her fan. Olga laughs too, gayly, and Hermia lets her lips part with one of her rare but perfect smiles. If she likes any one besides Olga and her children, it is bluff and blunt old Gertrude O'Connor.

One by one they all walk away, and presently Moyne is lying in the dying sunshine, in all its usual quietude, with never a sound to disturb the calm of coming eve but the light rustling of the rising breeze among the ivy-leaves that are clambering up its ancient walls.

Kit and Terry are indoors, laughing merrily over the day, and congratulating themselves upon the success it has certainly been.

"Yes. I do think, Penelope, they all enjoyed themselves," says Miss Priscilla, in high glee; "and your claret-cup, my dear, was superb."

But Monica has stolen away from them all. The strange restlessness that has lain upon her all day is asserting itself with cruel vigor, and drives her forth into the shadows of the coming night.

All day long she has struggled bravely against it; but, now that the enforced necessity for liveliness is at an end, she grows dreamy, distraite, and feels an intense longing for solitude and air.

Again she walks through the now deserted garden, where the flowers, "earth's loveliest," are drooping their sweet heads to seek their happy slumbers. Past them she goes with lowered head and thoughts engrossed, and so over the lawn into the wood beyond.

Here Coole and Moyne are connected by a high green bank, that in early spring is studded and diamonded with primroses and now is gay with ferns. Not until she has reached this boundary does she remember how far she has come.

She climbs the bank, and gazes with an ever-growing longing at the cool shade in the forbidden land, at the tall, stately trees, and the foxgloves nodding drowsily.

It is a perfect evening, and as yet the god of day – great Sol – is riding the heavens with triumphant mirth, as though reckless of the death that draweth nigh. Shall he not rise again to-morrow morn in all his awful majesty, and so defy grim Mars? It is, indeed, one of those hours when heaven seems nearest earth, "as when warm sunshine thrills wood-glooms to gold," and "righteousness and peace have kissed each other," and Nature, tender mother, smiles, and all the forest deeps are by "a tender whisper pierced."

Conscience forbidding her, she abstains from entering those coveted woods, and, with a sigh, seats herself upon the top of the green bank.

"Monica!" says a voice close to her, yet not close to her, – mysteriously, far up in mid-air, right over her head. She starts! Is the great wood peopled with satyrs, ouphs, or dryads?

CHAPTER XVII

The marvellous history of how Monica finds the green-eyed monster in a beech-tree – and how, single-handed, she attacks and overcomes him.

It is not a tender voice. It is not even a gentle or coldly friendly voice. It is, when all is told, a distinctly angry voice, full of possible reproaches and vehement upbraidings.

Monica, raising her head with extreme nervousness, had just time to see Mr. Desmond in the huge fir-tree above her, before he drops at her feet.

"What on earth were you doing up there?" asks she, thinking it wise to adopt the offensive style, so as to be first in the field, feeling instinctively that a scolding is coming and that she deserves it.

"Watching you," returns he, sternly, nothing dismayed by her assumption of injured innocence, so her little ruse falls through.

"A charming occupation, certainly!" says Miss Beresford, with fine disgust.

"I climbed up into that tree," says Mr. Desmond, savagely, "and from it saw that you had spent your entire day with that idiot, Ryde."

"Do you think," says Miss Beresford, with awful calm, "that it was a gentlemanly thing to climb into that tree, like a horrid schoolboy, and spy upon a person? —do you?"

"I don't," vehemently, "but I was driven to it. I don't care what is gentlemanly. I don't care," furiously, "what you think of me. I only know that my mind is now satisfied about you, and that I know you are the most abominable flirt in the world, and that you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"Well, I'm not," with great self-possession.

"The more to your discredit! That only means that you are bent on doing it again."

"I shall certainly always talk to any man who talks to me. That is," cuttingly, "any man who knows how to conduct himself with propriety."

"Meaning —I don't, I suppose?"

"Certainly you don't."

"Oh, if it comes to that," says Desmond, in tones of the deepest desperation, and as if nothing is left to expect but the deluge in another moment.

And, in effect, it comes. Not, as one has been taught to expect, in sudden storm, and wind, and lightning, but first in soft light drops, and then in a perfect downpour, that bursts upon them with passionate fury.

As they are standing beneath a magnificent beech, they get but a taste of the shower in reality, though Desmond, seeing some huge drops lying on Monica's thin white gown, feels his heart smite him.

"Here, take this," he says, roughly, taking off his coat and placing it round her shoulders.

"No, thank you," says Miss Beresford, stiffly.

"You must," returns he, and, to his surprise, she makes no further resistance. Perhaps she is cowed by the authority of his manner; perhaps she doesn't like the raindrops.

Encouraged, however, by her submission to a further daring of fortune, he says, presently, —

"You might have given Cobbett a turn, I think, instead of devoting yourself all day to that egregious ass."

"He prefers talking to Hermia. I suppose you don't want me to go up to people and ask them to be civil to me?"

"Some other fellow, then."

"You would be just as jealous of him, whoever he was."

"I am not jealous at all," indignantly. "I only object to your saying one thing to me and another to him."

"What is the one thing I say to you?"

This staggers him.

"You must find me a very monotonous person if I say only one thing to you always."

"I haven't found you so."

"Then it – whatever it is – must be one of the most eloquent and remarkable speeches upon record. Do tell it to me."

"Look here, Monica," says Mr. Desmond, cautiously evading a reply: "what I want to know is – what you see in Ryde. He is tall, certainly, but he is fat and effeminate, with 'a forehead villanous low.'"

"Your own is very low," says Miss Beresford.

"If I thought it was like his, I'd make away with myself. And you listen to all his stories, and believe them every one. I don't believe a single syllable he says: I never met such a bragger. To listen to him, one would think he had killed every tiger in Bengal. In my opinion, he never even saw one."

"'Les absents ont toujours tort,'" quotes she, in a low, significant tone.

This is the finishing stroke.

"Oh! you defend him," he says, as savagely almost as one of those wild beasts he has just mentioned. "In your eyes he is a hero, no doubt. I daresay all women see virtue in a man who 'talks as familiarly of roaring lions as maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs.'"

"I don't think maids of thirteen, as a rule, talk much of puppy-dogs. I'm sure Kit doesn't," says Monica, provokingly. "And really, to do Mr. Ryde justice too, I never heard him mention a roaring lion. Perhaps you are thinking of Artemus Ward's lion that goes about 'seeking whom he may devour somebody.'" She smiles in a maddening fashion.

"I am thinking of Ryde," says Desmond. "I am thinking, too, how mad I was when I thought you liked me better than him. I did think it, you know; but now I am desillusionnee. It is plain to me you are infatuated about this fellow, who is 'perfumed like a milliner' and hasn't two ideas in his head."

"I can't think where you find all your quotations," says Monica, who is now seriously annoyed; "but I must ask you not to worry me any further about Mr. Ryde."

"You are madly in love with him," says Desmond, choking with rage. Upon which Miss Beresford loses the last remnant of her patience, and very properly turns her back on him.

The rain has ceased, but during its reign has extinguished the dying sun, which has disappeared far below the horizon. A great hush and silence has followed the petulant burst of storm, and a peace unspeakable lies on all the land. There is a little glimpse of the ocean far away beyond the giant firs, and one can see that its waves are calm, and the fishing-boats upon its bosom scarcely rock.

The grass is bending still with the weight of the past rain, and a plaintive dripping from the trees can be heard, – a refreshing sound that lessens the sense of heat. The small birds stir cosily in their nests, and now and then a drowsy note breaks from one or another; a faint mist, white and intangible, rises from the hills, spreading from field to sky, until

"The earth, with heaven mingled, in the shadowy twilight lay,And the white sails seemed like spectres in a cloud-land far away."

"Ah! you don't like me to say that," says Desmond, unappeased by the beauty of the growing night; "but – "

"Do not say another word," says Monica, imperiously. The moon is rising slowly – slowly, – and so, by the by, is her temper. "I forbid you. Here," throwing to him his coat; "I think I have before remarked that the rain is quite over. I am sorry I ever touched anything belonging to you."

Desmond having received the coat, and put himself into it once more, silence ensues. It does, perhaps, strike him as a hopeful sign that she shows no haste to return home and so rid herself of a presence she has inadvertently declared to be hateful to her, because presently he says, simply, if a little warmly, —

"There is no use in our quarreling like this. I won't give you up without a further struggle, to any man. So we may as well have it out now. Do you care for that – for Ryde?"

"If you had asked me that before, – sensibly, – you might have avoided making an exhibition of yourself and saying many rude things. I don't in the least mind telling you," says Miss Beresford, coldly, "that I can't bear him."

"Oh, Monica! is this true?" asks he, in an agony of hope.

"Quite true. But you don't deserve I should say it."

"My darling! My 'one thing bright' in all this hateful world! Oh!" throwing up his head with an impatient gesture, "I have been so wretched all this evening! I have suffered the tortures of the – "

"Now, you musn't say naughty words," interrupts she, with an adorable smile. "You are glad I have forgiven you?"

This is how she puts it, and he is only too content to be friends with her on any terms, to show further fight.

"More than glad."

"And you will promise me never to be jealous again?"

This is a bitter pill, considering his former declaration that jealousy and he had nothing to do with each other; but he swallows it bravely.

"Never. And you – you will never again give me cause, darling, will you?"

"I gave you no cause now," says the darling, shaking her pretty head obstinately. And he doesn't dare contradict her. "You behaved really badly," she goes on, reproachfully, "and at such a time, too, – just when I was dying to tell you such good news."

"Good? – your aunts – " eagerly, "have relented – they – "

"Oh, no! oh, dear, no!" says Miss Beresford. "They are harder than ever against you. Adamant is a sponge in comparison with them. It isn't that; but Madam O'Connor has asked me to go and stay with her next Monday for a week! – there!"

"And me too?"

"N – o. Aunt Priscilla made it a condition with regard to my going that you shouldn't be there."

"The – And Madam O'Connor gave in to such abominable tyranny?"

"Without a murmur."

"I thought she had a soul above that sort of thing," says Mr. Desmond, with disgust. "But they are all alike."

"Who? – women?"

"Yes."

"You mean to tell me I am like Aunt Priscilla and Madam O'Connor?"

"Old women, I mean," with anxious haste, seeing a cloud descending upon the brow of his beloved.

"Oh!"

"And, after all, it is good news," says Brian, brightening, "because though I can't stop in the house for the week, still there is nothing to prevent my riding over there every one of the seven days."

"That's just what I thought," says Monica, ingenuously, with a sweet little blush.

"Ah! you wished for me, then?"

She refuses to answer this in any more direct manner than her eyes afford, but says, quickly, doubtfully, —

"It won't be deceiving Aunt Priscilla, your coming there to visit, will it? She must know she cannot compel Madam O'Connor to forbid you the house. And she knows perfectly you are an intimate friend of hers."

"Of course she does. She is a regular old tyrant, – a Bluebeard in petticoats; but – "

"No, no; you must not abuse her," says Monica: so he becomes silent.

She is standing very close to the trunk of the old beech, half leaning against it upon one arm which is slightly raised. She has no gloves, but long white mittens that reach above her elbow to where the sleeves of her gown join them. Through the little holes in the pattern of these kindly mittens her white arms can be seen gleaming like snow beneath the faint rays of the early moon. With one hand she is playing some imaginary air upon the tree's bark.

As she so plays, tiny sparkles from her rings attract his notice.

"Those five little rings," says Desmond, idly, "always remind me of the five little pigs that went to market, – I don't know why."

"They didn't all go to market," demurely. "One of them, I know, stayed at home."

"So he did. I remember now. Somehow it makes me feel like a boy again."

"Then, according to Hood, you must be nearer heaven than you were a moment ago."

"I couldn't," says Desmond, turning, and looking into her beautiful eyes. "My heaven has been near me for the last half-hour." If he had said hour he would have been closer to the truth.

A soft, lovely crimson creeps into her cheeks, and her eyes fall before his for a moment. Then she laughs, – a gay, mirthful laugh, that somehow puts sentiment to flight.

"Go on about your little pigs," she says, glancing at him with coquettish mirth.

"About your rings, you mean. I never look at them that I don't begin this sort of thing." Here, seeing an excellent opportunity for it, he takes her hand in his. "This little turquoise went to market, this little pearl stayed at home, this little emerald got some – er – cheese – "

"No, it wasn't," hastily. "It was roast beef."

"So it was. Better than cheese, any day. How stupid of me! I might have known an emerald – I mean a pig – wouldn't like cheese."

"I don't suppose it would like roast beef a bit better," says Monica; and then her lips part and she bursts into a merry laugh at the absurdity of the thing. She is such a child still that she finds the keenest enjoyment in it.

"Never mind," with dignity, "and permit me to tell you, Miss Beresford, that open ridicule is rude. To continue: this little pearl got none, and this little plain gold ring got – he got – what on earth did the little plain gold pig – I mean, ring – get?"

"Nothing. Just what you ought to get for such a badly-told story. He only cried, 'Wee.'"

"Oh, no, indeed. He shan't cry at all. I won't have tears connected with you in any way."

She glances up at him with eyes half shy, half pleased, and with the prettiest dawning smile upon her lips.