Rossmoyne

"I mean you don't object to the subject, – or Mr. Ryde?" says Olga, kindly, unaware that Mr. Ryde has come away from the tea-table and is now close behind her. Monica, however, sees him, and smiles courteously.

"Oh, no," she says, as in duty bound.

And then the fourth is found and grasped, and all trouble is at an end.

"So glad I can now take my tea in peace," says Olga, with a sigh of profound relief. "Who would be stage-manager?"

"Ah! you don't do much of this kind of thing in Ireland, I daresay," says Mr. Ryde.

"What kind of thing?" asks Olga, sweetly, who doesn't like him. "Tea-drinking?"

"No – acting – er – and that."

"I'm afraid I'm quite at sea about the 'that,'" says Olga, shaking her blonde head. "Perhaps we do a good deal of it, perhaps we don't. Explain it to me."

("Awful stoopid people! – not a word of truth about their ready wit," says Mr. Ryde to himself at this juncture.)

"Oh, well – er – let us confine ourselves to the acting," he says, feeling somehow at a loss. "It is new to you here, it seems."

"I certainly have never acted in my life," begins Monica; "but – "

Mrs. Bohun interrupts her.

"We are a hopelessly benighted lot," she says, making Ryde a present of a beautiful smile. "We are sadly behind the world, —rococo" – shrugging her shoulders pathetically – "to the last degree. You, Mr. Ryde, have opened up to us possibilities never dreamt of before; touches of civilization hitherto unknown."

"I should think in your case a very little tuition would be sufficient," says Ryde, with such kindly encouragement in his tone that Ronayne, who is at Olga's feet, collapses, and from being abnormally grave breaks into riotous laughter.

"You must teach us stage effects, – is that the proper term? – and correct us when we betray too crass an ignorance, and – above all things, Mr. Ryde," with an arch glance, "you must promise not to lose your temper over the gaucheries of your Dolly Varden."

"Whose Dolly Varden?" asks Desmond, coming up at this instant laden with cups of tea.

"Mr. Ryde's."

"He is to be Hugh to Miss Beresford's Dolly," says Ronayne.

"Yes, isn't it good of Monica? she has consented to take the part," says Olga, who is really grateful to her for having helped her out of her difficulty.

"Have you?" says Desmond, turning upon Monica with dilated eyes.

"Yes. Is that tea for me?" returns she, calmly, with great self-possession, seeing that sundry eyes are upon her.

"For you, or any one," replies he. Tone can convey far more meaning than words. The words just now are correct enough, but the tone is uncivil to the last degree. Monica, flushing slightly, takes a cup from him, and Olga takes the second.

There is a short silence whilst they stir their tea, during which Madam O'Connor's voice can be distinctly heard, – it generally can above every tumult. She is discoursing enthusiastically about some wonderful tree in her orchard, literally borne down by fruit.

"You never saw such a sight!" she is saying, – "laden down to the ground. The finest show of pears in the country. I was telling Williams he would do well to prop it. But I suppose it will ruin the tree for the next two years to come."

"What, the propping?" says Rossmoyne.

"No, the enormous produce, you silly boy!" says his hostess, with a laugh.

Monica, who is growing restless beneath Desmond's angry regard, turns to her nervously.

"I think I should like to see it," she says, softly.

"Allow me to take you to it," says Ryde, quickly, coming to her side.

"Miss Beresford is coming with me," interposes Desmond. His face is pale, and his eyes flash ominously.

"That is for Miss Beresford to decide."

"She has decided," says Desmond, growing even paler, but never removing his eyes from his rival's. He is playing a dangerous game, but even in the danger is ecstasy. And, as Monica continues silent, a great joy fills his soul.

"But until" – begins the Englishman, doggedly – "I hear – "

"Mrs. Bohun's cup is causing her embarrassment. See to it," interrupts Desmond, unemotionally. And then, turning to Monica, he says, "Come," coldly, but with such passionate entreaty in his eyes that she is borne away by it, and goes with him submissively across the lawn, until she has so far withdrawn herself from her companions that a return would be undignified.

They go as far as the entrance to the orchard, a good quarter of a mile, in silence, and then the storm breaks.

"I won't have that fellow holding you in his arms," says Desmond, pale with grief and rage, standing still and confronting her.

"I thought you said you would never be jealous again," says Monica, who has had time to recover herself, and time, too, to grow angry.

"I also said I hoped you would never give me cause."

"Mrs. Bohun has arranged this tableau."

"Then disarrange it."

"But how?"

"Say you won't act with Ryde."

"You can't expect me to make myself laughable in that way."

"Then I'll do it."

"And so make me laughable in another way. I can't see what right you have to interfere," she breaks out suddenly, standing before him, wilful but lovely. "What are you to me, or I to you, that you should order me about like this?"

"You are all the world to me, – you are my wife," says the young man, in a solemn tone, but with passionately angry eyes. "You can refuse me if you like, but I shall go to my grave with your image only in my heart. As to what I am to you, that is quite another thing, – less than nothing, I should say."

"And no wonder, too, considering your awful temper," says Monica, viciously; but her tone trembles.

At this he seems to lose heart. A very sad look creeps into his dark eyes and lingers there.

"Well, do what you like about these wretched tableaux," he says, so wearily that Monica, though victorious, feels inclined to cry. "If they give you a moment's pleasure, why should I rebel? As you say, I am nothing to you. Come, let us go and look at this famous pear-tree."

But she does not stir. They are inside the orchard, standing in a very secluded spot, with only some green apples and an ivied wall to see them. Her eyes are downcast, and her slender fingers are playing nervously with a ribbon on her gown. Her lips have taken a remorseful curve. Now, as though unable to restrain the impulse, she raises her eyes to his for a brief second, but, brief as it is, he can see that they are full of tears.

"Brian," she says, nervously.

It is the first time she has ever called him by his Christian name, and he turns to her a face still sad indeed, but altogether surprised and pleased.

"Now, that is good of you," he says.

"There is nothing good about me," says Monica, tearfully. "I am as horrid as I well can be, and you are – Brian, I will give up that tableau. I will not be Dolly Varden; no, not if Mr. Ryde went on his knees to me."

"My dear, dear love!" says Mr. Desmond.

"Do you indeed love me," says Monica, softly, "in spite of all I do?"

"I love you because of all you do. What is there not commendable in every action of yours? I love you; I live always in the hope that some day you will be more to me than you are to-day. A presumptuous hope perhaps," with a rather forced smile, "but one I will not stifle. I suppose every one lives in a visionary world at times, where some 'not impossible she' reigns as queen. I dare say you think my queen is impossible, yet you little know what dreams have been my playmates, night and day."

"Am I your queen?" sweetly.

"Yes, darling."

"And you are glad I have given up this tableau?"

"I don't know what I should have done if you hadn't."

"Then, now you will do something for me," says Miss Beresford, promptly.

"Anything," with enthusiasm.

"Then to-morrow you are to come here without the roses I heard you promising Miss Fitzgerald this afternoon."

Her tone is quite composed, but two little brilliant flecks of color have risen hurriedly and are now flaunting themselves on either pretty cheek. She is evidently very seriously in earnest.

"She asked me for them: she will think it so ungenerous, so rude," says Desmond.

"Not ungenerous. She will never think you that, or rude either," says Monica, gauging the truth to a nicety. "Careless if you will, but no more; and – I want you to seem careless where she is concerned."

"But why, my dearest?"

"Because I don't like her; she always treats me as though I were some insignificant little girl still in short petticoats," says Miss Beresford, with rising indignation. "And because – because, too – "

She pauses in some confusion.

"Go on: because what?" with gentle encouragement.

"Well, then, because I know she wants to marry you," says Monica, vehemently, but in a choked voice.

"What an extraordinary idea to come into your head!" says Desmond, in a choked tone also, but from a different emotion.

"What are you laughing at?" severely. "At me?"

"My darling, it seems so absurd, and – "

"I forbid you to laugh," in a tone replete with anger but highly suggestive of tears. "Don't do it."

"I'll never laugh again, my pet, if it offends you so dreadfully."

"But your eyes are laughing; I can see them. I can see a great deal more than you think, and I know that hateful girl has made up her mind to marry you as soon as ever she can."

"That will be never."

"Not if you go on bringing her roses and things."

"What harm can a simple rose do?"

"If you are going to look at it in that light, I shall say no more. But in a very little time you will find she has married you, and then where will you be?"

Her jealousy is too childishly open to be misunderstood. Mr. Desmond's spirits are rising with marvellous rapidity; indeed, for the past two minutes he feels as if he is treading on air.

"As you won't have me, I don't much care where I shall be," he says with the mean hope of reducing her to submission by a threat. In this hope he is doomed to be disappointed, as she meets his base insinuation with an unlowered front.

"Very good, go and marry her," she says, calmly, as if church, parson, and Miss Fitzgerald are all waiting for him, in anxious expectation, round the corner.

"No, I shan't," says Desmond, changing his tactics without a blush. "Catch me at it! As you persist in refusing me, I shall never marry, but remain a bachelor forever, for your sweet sake."

"Then say you will not bring those roses to-morrow. Or, better still, say you will bring them, and" – all women, even the best are cruel – "give them to me before her."

"My darling! what an unreasonable thing to ask me!"

"Oh! I daresay! when people don't love people they always think everything they do unreasonable."

This rather involved sentence seems to cut Mr. Desmond to the heart.

"Of course, if you say that, I must do it," he says.

"Don't do it on my account," with a wilful air.

"No, on my own, of course."

"Well, remember I don't ask you to do it," with the most disgraceful ingratitude. "Do as you wish about it."

"Your wishes are mine," he says, tenderly. "I have had no divided existence since that first day I saw you, – how long ago it seems now – "

"Very long. Only a few weeks in reality, but it seems to myself that I have known and – liked you all my life."

"Yet that day when I saw you on the hay-cart is hardly two months old," says Desmond, dreamily.

As a breath of half-forgotten perfume, or a long-lost chord fresh sounded, brings back the memories of a lifetime, so does this chance remark of his now recall to her a scene almost gone out of mind, yet still fraught with recollections terrible to her self-love.

"Two months, – only two? – oh, it must be more," she says, with a pang. Surely time ought to lessen the feeling of shame that overpowers her whenever she thinks of that fatal day.

"So wearisome a time, my own?" asks he, reproachfully.

"No, it is not that. It is only – . Oh, Brian, that day you speak of, when I was on that horrid hay-cart, did you – I mean – did I – that is – did I look very ungraceful?"

The word she is dying to say is disgraceful, but she dares not.

"Ungraceful?"

"Yes. Terry says that when we were passing you that day I was – was," with a desperate rush, "kicking up my heels?"

She is trembling with shame and confusion. Crimson has sprung to her cheeks, tears to her eyes.

"I don't believe a word of it," says Mr. Desmond, comprehending the situation at last. "But, even supposing you were, – and, after all, that is the sort of thing every one does on a bundle of hay," – as though it is quite the customary thing for people generally to go round the world seated on hay-carts, – "I didn't see you – that is, your heels, I mean; I saw only your face, – the prettiest face in the world. How could I look at anything else when I had once seen that?"

"Brian!" turning to him impetuously, and laying both her hands upon his shoulders, "I do think you are the dearest fellow on earth."

"Oh, Monica! am I the dearest to you?" He has twined his arms round her lissome figure, and is gazing anxiously into her eyes.

"Yes, – yes, certainly." And then, with a naivete indescribable, and with the utmost composure, she says, —

"I think I should like to give you a kiss!"

Is the blue dome still over his head, or has the sky fallen? The thing he has been longing for, with an intensity not to be portrayed, ever since their first meeting, but has not dared to even hint at, is now freely offered him, as though it were a thing of naught.

"Monica!" says her lover, the blood rushing to his face, "do you mean it?" He tightens his clasp round her, yet still refrains from touching the sweet lips so near his own. A feeling of honest manliness makes him hesitate about accepting this great happiness, lest, indeed, he may have misunderstood her. To him it is so great a boon she grants that he hardly dares believe in its reality.

"Of course I do," says Miss Beresford, distinctly offended. "I – at least, I did. I don't now. I always want to kiss people when I feel fond of them; but you don't, evidently, or else, perhaps, you aren't really fond of me at all, in spite of all you have said. Never mind. Don't put yourself out. It was merely a passing fancy on my part."

"Oh, don't let it pass," exclaims her lover, anxiously. "Darling life, don't you know I have been longing, longing to kiss you for weeks past, yet dared not, because something in your eyes forbade me? And now, to have you of your own accord really willing to give my dear desire seems too much."

"Are you sure that it is that, or – "

"My angel, what a question!"

"Yet perhaps you think – Don't kiss me just to oblige me, you know. I don't care so much about it as all that, but – "

She finds it impossible to finish the sentence, because —

Dexterously, but gently, she draws herself away from him, and stands a little apart. Looking at her, he can see she is troubled. He has opened his lips to speak, but by a gesture she restrains him.

"I know it now," she says. This oracular speech is accompanied by a blush, vivid as it is angry, and there are large tears in her eyes. "I should not have asked you to kiss me. That was your part, and you have taught me that I usurped it. Yet I thought only that I was fond of you, that you were my friend, or like Terry, or – " here the grievance gains sound, "you should not have kissed me like that."

"You didn't suppose I was going to kiss you as Terry might?" asks he, with just indignation. "He is your brother; I am – not."

"I don't know anything about it, except this, that it will be a very long time before you have the chance of doing it again. I can't bear being hugged."

"I am very sorry," says Mr. Desmond, stiffly. "Let me assure you, however, that I shall never cause you such offence again until you wish it."

"Then say never at once," says Monica, with a pout.

"Very good," says Desmond. It may now be reasonably supposed that he has met all her requirements, and that she has no further complaints to bring forward; but such is not the case.

"I don't like you when you talk to me like that," she says, aggressively, and with a spoiled-child air, glancing at him from under her sweeping lashes.

"How am I to talk to you, then?" asks he, in despair.

"You know very well how to talk to Miss Fitzgerald," retorts she, provokingly, and with a bold attempt at a frown. Yet there is something about her naughty little face, a hidden, mocking, mischievous, yet withal friendly smile as it were, that disarms her speech of its sting and gives Brian renewed hope and courage.

He takes her hand deliberately and draws it unrepulsed through his arm.

"Let us go up this walk," he says, "and leave all angry words and thoughts behind us."

He makes a movement in the direction indicated, and finds that she moves with him. He finds, too, that her slender fingers have closed involuntarily upon his arm. Plainly, she is as glad to be at peace with him as he with her.

Coming to a turn in the path, shaded by two rugged old apple-trees now growing heavy with their green burden, Desmond stands still, and, putting his right hand in his pocket, draws out something from it. As he does this he colors slightly.

"You wear all your rings on your right hand," he says, with loving awkwardness, "and it seems to me the other poor little fingers always look neglected. I – I wish you would take this and make it a present to your left hand."

"This" is a thick gold band, set with three large diamonds of great brilliancy in gypsy fashion.

"Oh! not for me!" says Monica, recoiling, and clasping her hands behind her back, yet with her eyes firmly fastened upon the beautiful ring.

"Why not for you? Some day I shall give you all I possess; now I can give you only such things as this."

"Indeed I must not take it," says Monica; but even as she utters the half-hearted refusal she creeps unconsciously closer to him, and, laying her hand upon his wrist, looks with childish delight and longing at the glittering stones lying in his palm.

"But I say you must," says Desmond, taking a very superior tone. "It is yours, not mine. I have nothing to do with it. It was never meant for me. See," taking up her hand and slipping the ring on her engaged finger, "how pretty your little white hand makes it look!"

It is always a difficult thing to a woman to bring herself to refuse diamonds, but doubly difficult once she has seen them positively adorning her own person.

Monica looks at the ring, then sighs, then turns it round and round mechanically, and finally glances at Desmond. He returns the glance by passing his arm round her shoulders, after which there is never another word said about the ownership of the ring.

"But it will put my poor little pigs in the shade, won't it?" says Monica, looking at her other hand, and then at him archly. "Oh! it is lovely —lovely!"

"I think I might have chosen you a prettier one, had I run up to Dublin and gone to Waterhouse myself," says Desmond; "but I knew if I went I could not possibly get back until to-morrow evening, and that would mean losing two whole days of our precious seven."

This speech pleases Monica, I think, even more than the ring.

"I am glad you did not go," she says, softly.

"So am I – especially as – " Here he pauses, and then goes on again hurriedly. "If I had gone, Monica, you would not have forgotten me?"

"How could I forget you in two little days?"

"They would have been two very big days to me. But tell me, if I were to go away from you for a far longer time – say for a whole month – would you still be faithful? Should I find you as I left you, – indifferent to others at least, if not wholly mine?"

"Why should I change?"

"Darling, there are so many reasons." He draws his breath quickly, impatiently. "Some day, you may meet some one else – more suited to you, perhaps, and – "

"I shall never do that." She interrupts him slowly, but decidedly.

"You are sure?"

"Yes."

The answer in words perhaps is meagre; but he, looking into the depths of her soft eyes, sees a surer answer there, and is satisfied.

The shadows are growing longer and slower. They do not dance and quiver now in mad glee, as they did an hour agone.

"I think we must go back," says Monica, with unconcealed regret.

"What! you will throw me again into temptation? into the very arms of the fair Bella?" says Desmond, laughing.

"Reflect, I beg of you, before it is too late."

"After all," says Monica, "I don't think I have behaved very nicely about her. I don't think now it would be a – a pretty thing to make you give me the roses before her. No, you must not do that; and you must not manage to forget them, either. You shall bring the handsomest you can find and give them to her, – but publicly Brian, just as if there was nothing in it, you know."

"There is nothing like adhering to the strict truth," says Brian. "There shall be nothing in my roses, I promise you, – except perfume."

CHAPTER XX

How gossip grows rife at Aghyohillbeg – How Hermia parries the question, and how Olga proves unkind.

"She's disgracefully ugly! – I saw her quite close," says Mr. Kelly, in an injured tone. "I wonder what on earth Madam O'Connor means by asking her here, where she can be nothing but a blot upon a perfect landscape; all the rest of us are so lovely."

It is four o'clock, and hopelessly wet. The soft rain patters on the leaves outside, the grass and all the gardens are drowned in Nature's tears. There can be no lounging on sunny terraces, no delicious dreaming under shady beech-trees, this lost afternoon.

Giving in to the inevitable with a cheerful resignation worthy of record, they have all congregated in the grand old hall, one of the chief glories of Aghyohillbeg.

Through a vague but mistaken notion that it will add to their comfort and make them cosier and more forgetful of – or at least more indifferent to – the sunshine of yesterday, they have had an enormous fire of pine logs kindled upon the hearth. When too late, they discover it to be a discomfort; but, with a stoicism worthy a better cause, they decline to acknowledge their error, and stand in groups round the aggressive logs, pretending to enjoy them, but in reality dying of heat.

Meanwhile, the fragrant pieces of pine roar and crackle merrily, throwing shadows up the huge chimney, and casting bright gleams of light upon the exquisite oaken carving of the ancient chimney-piece that reaches almost to the lofty ceiling and is now blackened by age and beautiful beyond description.

Olga, in a sage-green gown, is lying back listlessly in a deep arm-chair; she has placed an elbow on either arm of it, and has brought her fingers so far towards each other that their tips touch. Hermia Herrick, in a gown of copper-red, is knitting languidly a little silk sock for the child nestling silently at her knee.

Monica, in plain white India muslin, is doing nothing, unless smiling now and then at Brian Desmond be anything, who is lying on a bear-skin rug, looking supremely happy and full of life and spirits. He has come over from Coole very early, being generously urged so to do by Madam O'Connor when parting with him last night. Ryde is not on the field, so the day is his own.

Miss Fitzgerald is looking rather handsome, in a dress of the very tiniest check, that is meant for a small woman only, or a child, and so makes her appear several sizes larger than she really is. Ulic Ronayne, standing leaning against the chimney-piece as close to Olga as circumstances will permit, is silent to a fault; and, indeed, every one but Mr. Kelly has succumbed to the damp depression of the air.

They have had only one distraction all day, – the arrival of another guest, a distant cousin of their hostess, who has been lauding her for a week or so. On inspection she proves to be a girl of nineteen, decidedly unprepossessing in appearance, – in fact, as Mr. Murphy, the butler, says to Mrs. Collins, the housekeeper, "as ugly as if she was bespoke."