Rossmoyne

"An' we hear they're boycotted, too, ma'am," says old Ryan, still oppressed with news that must be worked off. "John Bileman, the Protestant baker in the village they always dealt wid, has been forbidden to give 'em another loaf, and the butcher is threatened if he gives 'em a joint, an' the Clonbree butcher has been telegraphed to also, miss, an' there's the world an' all to pay!"

"Do you mean that they are going to treat him as they did Mr. Bence Jones?" says Miss Penelope, indignantly.

"Troth, I believe so, ma'am."

"Will Mr. Brian have to milk the cows?" says Terence, at which astounding thought both he and Kit break into merry laughter until checked by Monica's reproachful gaze. How can they laugh when Brian may be starving?

"Faix, it's awful, miss; an' the ould man to be wantin' for things now, – he that allus kep' a fine table, to spake truth of him, and liked his bit an' sup amazin', small blame to him. I'm thinkin' 'tis hungry enough he'll be now for the future, the crathur! Oh, wirra! wirra!" says Timothy, sympathetically, as he shambles towards the door.

When he is gone, Miss Priscilla turns upon Terence and Kit.

"I must say, I think your mirth at such a time most unseemly," she says. "I am glad Monica takes no part in it. Terence, did you go up to the widow Driscoll with my message this morning?"

"Yes, aunt."

She had evidently expected him to say "no," because her tone is considerably mollified when she speaks again.

"Was she pleased, do you think?"

"Yes, aunt."

"She said so, perhaps?"

"No, aunt."

"Then what did she say? I wish, my dear boy, you would try to be a little less reticent."

"She said, 'Her duty to you, aunt, and her very coarse veins were worse than ever.'"

"Varicose, Terence – varicose!"

"She said very coarse, aunt, and I suppose she knows more about them than any one else."

He has a very sweet face, and it is more than usually so as he says all this.

"And her son, how is he, poor soul?" asks Miss Penelope, as Miss Priscilla withdraws, beaten, into the background.

"His duty to you, too, and 'he is better, but has been much afflicted with the egg-cups for the last two days.'"

"The what!" says Miss Penelope, shifting her pinceneze uneasily, and looking perplexed in the extreme.

"Oh, Terry! how can you be so silly?" says Kit, with another merry laugh.

"How am I silly?" with an impassible countenance. "Young Driscoll is silly, of course, and evidently looks upon part of the breakfast-ware as enemies of some sort. But that is not my fault."

"Hiccoughs he must have meant, my dear," says Miss Priscilla, hastily. "Dear – dear – dear! what a terrible shock he – they – must have got last night at Coole!"

When day is deepening into eventide, Monica, finding Kit alone, kneels down beside her, and lays her cheek to hers.

All day long she has been brooding miserably over her lover's danger, and dwelling with foolish persistency upon future dangers born of her terrified imagination.

She had been down to their trysting-place at the river, hardly hoping to find him there, yet had been terribly disappointed when she had not found him, Brian at that very moment being busy with police and magistrates and law generally.

"What is it, ducky?" says Kit, very tenderly, laying down her book and pressing her pretty sister close to her.

"Kit," says Monica, with tearful eyes, "do you think it is all true that Timothy said this morning about their – their starving at Coole? Oh Kit, I can't bear to think he is hungry!"

"It is dreadful! I don't know what to think," says Kit. "If nobody will sell them anything, I suppose they have nothing to eat."

At this corroboration of her worst fears, Monica dissolves into tears.

"I couldn't eat my chicken at lunch, thinking of him," she sobs. "It stuck in my throat."

"Poor sweet love! – it was dry," says Kit, expanding into the wildest affection. She kisses Monica fondly, and (though you would inevitably have suffered death at her hands had you even hinted at it) is beginning to enjoy herself intensely. Once again this luckless couple look to her for help. She is to be the one to raise them from their "Slough of Despond," – difficult but congenial task! "Then you have been existing on lemon tart and one glass of sherry since breakfast time?" she says, with the deepest commiseration. "Poor darling! I saw it; I noticed you ate nothing except the tart. You liked that, didn't you?"

"I didn't," says Monica. "I hated it. And I was a cruel, cold-hearted wretch to touch it. But it was sweet – and – I – it – somehow disappeared."

"It did," says Kit, tenderly.

"Oh, Kit, help me!"

"You mean you want to take him something wherewith to stave off the pangs of hunger," says the younger Miss Beresford, with that grandeur of style she usually affects in moments of strong excitement, and with the vigor that distinguishes her. "I see; certainly." She grows abstracted. "There's a leg of mutton hanging in the larder, with some fowl, and a quarter of lamb," she says, presently. "But I suppose if we took them, Aunt Priscilla would put us in the hue and cry."

"It mustn't be thought of. No, no; think of something else."

"Bread, then. Ordinary, of course, very ordinary, but yet the staff of life."

"I couldn't take him anything so nasty as mere bread," says Monica, in despair. "But, if cook would make us a cake – "

"A big one, with currants! The very thing!" says Kit, with decision. "And she will never betray us. Reilly, in little affairs of this kind, – though sadly wanting where soups are concerned, – is quite all she ought to be."

"When will it be baked? He must get it to-night," says Monica, who is evidently afraid her lover, if not succored, will die of want before morning.

"Leave all to me," says Kit, flitting away from her through the gathering gloom to seek the lower region and its presiding goddess.

Leaving all to Kit means that when dinner is over, about half-past eight, the two Misses Beresford may be seen crossing the boundary that divides Moyne from Coole with anxious haste and a hot cake.

This last is hugged to Monica's breast, and is plainly causing her the greatest inconvenience. It is a huge cake, and has to be carried parcelwise, being much too big for the smaller basket they had, and much too small for the bigger. But Monica – though it is heavy beyond description (though, I hope, light in every other way for the sake of Reilly's reputation) and still appallingly hot– trudges along with it bravely, resisting all Kit's entreaties to be allowed to share the burden.

"Who are those coming towards us through the elms down there?" says Mr. Kelly, suddenly.

He and Brian Desmond are sitting upon a garden seat outside the dining-room windows, enjoying an after dinner cigar.

"There?" says Brian, following his glance. "Eh? – What?" There is a second pause, then, rising to his feet with much precipitancy, he flings his cigar to the winds, and, before Owen has time to recover from his astonishment at these proceedings, is well out of sight. A turn in the lawn has hidden Brian and the advancing figures from his view.

"Monica!" says Desmond, as he reaches her; "what has brought you here at this hour? My darling! how pale and tired you look!"

"She has been much perturbed," says Kit, solemnly. She has been meditating this remark for some time.

"We heard all about last night," murmurs Monica, with a sweet troubled face, out of which her eyes look into his, full of a tender pathos, like violets drowned. "And you were not at the river this afternoon, and so I came here to find you, and – " Her voice trembles ominously.

"I was obliged to be with the sergeant and the other men all day," says Desmond, hurriedly. "Do not blame me, my love. When I went to the river towards evening it was then of course too late. I meant to go up to Moyne when the moon was up – But what have you got there, dearest?" pointing to the enormous thing she is still holding tightly to her breast.

She colors and hesitates; seeing which, the faithful Kit comes once more to the rescue.

"It's a cake!" she says, with a nod of her sleek head. "We knew of you being boycotted, and we thought you would be hungry, so we brought it to you. But," eyeing him with disfavor, and as one might who feels herself considerably done, "you are evidently not. You are looking just the same as ever, and not a bit pinched or drawn, as people are when they are found starved in garrets."

"Yes, I was afraid you would get nothing to eat," says Monica, timidly. There is in her lovely eyes a certain wistfulness suggestive of the idea that she hopes her cake has not been made in vain.

Mr. Desmond, seeing it, grasps the situation.

"I am hungry," he says; and I hope, and think, the gentle lie will be forgiven him. "We have had nothing in the house all day but bread, and that is not appetizing."

"There!" says Monica, turning to Kit with sparkling eyes, "I told you he wouldn't like bread."

"But," goes on Desmond, with a view to making her future happier, "to-morrow all will be right again. We know of a few faithful people who will smuggle us in all we may require. So do not be unhappy about me again. Sweetheart, what a terrible weight you have been carrying!"

"It is a fine one, isn't it?" says Kit. "But give it to me now, Monica," taking the cake from her, "while you talk to Brian: when you are ready to come home, I can give it to him."

So saying, this inestimable child withdraws herself and Monica's offering to a safe distance, and pretends for the remainder of the interview an absorbing interest in some wild flowers growing near.

"I have only a moment to stay," says Monica, nervously. "I shall be missed; and now I have seen you safe and unhurt," with a very sweet smile, "I shall be able to sleep. But all day long I have been haunted by timid thoughts," she sighs.

"I doubt it was a sorry day for you, that first one when we met," says Desmond, remorsefully. "I have brought you only trouble. By and by you will regret you ever knew me."

"Do not say that. I have no regrets, – none! Even if – if – we cannot be – " reddening vividly, "more to each other than we are now, I can still be happy in the thought that you love me and are near me, and that I can sometimes, in spite of every one– " with a recklessness that sits very funnily upon her – "see you."

"But we shall be more to each other, Monica," says the young man, earnestly. "We shall be all in all to each other. No human being has the right to separate two hearts for the sake of a mere whim."

"There are so many things. But now, indeed, I must go. Good-night."

"Good-night, my own. But I shall go with you as far as the boundary fence."

"No, no, indeed!"

"But indeed I shall!" and of course he has his own way, and parts from her and Kit there, and answers her parting injunction "to take care of himself for her sake" – this last very low – with a lingering lover's kiss, and watches the two slight figures with a beating heart, until they are out of sight.

Then, picking up the cake, he goes back again to where Mr. Kelly is still awaiting him.

CHAPTER XXVII

How Monica's gift receives due attention, and is thoroughly appreciated; and how a torpedo falls into a morning-room at Moyne.

"Well," says Kelly, "was it Miss Beresford?"

"Yes, and her sister. I saw them back to the boundary fence, but they would let me go no farther. It was rather – "

"What on earth have you got there?" says his friend, sticking his eyeglass in his eye, and staring with bent head and some suspicion at the mysterious thing in Desmond's arms.

"This! oh, ah! yes." Then, desperately, "Kelly, if you laugh at it I'll never forgive you."

Mr. Kelly drops the eyeglass and looks afflicted.

"My dear fellow, do I ever laugh?" he says.

"Well, it – it's a cake!" says Brian, who (in spite of the warning just delivered to his friend) is now indulging in wild mirth and can scarcely speak for laughter. "She – Monica – heard we were boycotted, and, thinking we were starving, the dear angel! she brought this up herself to us."

"Desmond, I'm ashamed of you," says Kelly, who has not moved a muscle of his face. "Such an action as hers calls for reverence, – not this unseemly gayety."

"It's not the action I'm laughing at," says Brian, still convulsed; "it's the cake. The action is divine – the cake hot!" Here he sinks upon the garden-seat again, as if exhausted, and dries his eyes.

"I see nothing to laugh at in that, either. It seems an excellent cake, and, as you say, hot," says Mr. Kelly, prodding it meditatively with his finger, – "a merit in a cake of this sort, I should say; and nicely browned, too, as far as I can see. I can see, too, that it is quite the biggest cake I ever made acquaintance with. Another merit! Did she carry it herself all the way?"

"All the way, poor darling! and just because she was afraid we should be hungry." Mr. Desmond's laughter has subsided, and he now looks rather absent. "It quite weighed her down," he says, in a low tone.

"Poor child! I said yesterday, you remember, that I thought her one of the nicest girls I have met. The cake has finished me. I think her now the nicest." He says this with a cheerful conscience. Between girls and widows a deep margin lies.

"But what are we to do with it?" says Brian, regarding the cake, which is now lying upon the garden seat, with a puzzled expression.

"Say a repentant tenant – no, that sounds like tautology – say a remorseful tenant brought it to you."

"That wouldn't do at all."

"Then say you found it in the garden."

"Nonsense, Kelly! they don't grow. Think of something more plausible."

"Give me time, then." As he speaks he absently breaks off a piece of the cake and puts it in his mouth. Desmond, in quite as abstracted a manner, does likewise. Silence ensues.

"I think the idea was so sweet," says Desmond, presently, his thoughts being (as they should be) with Monica.

"As honey and the honeycomb!" says Mr. Kelly, breaking off another piece, with a far-off, rapt expression.

"She said she couldn't be happy, thinking we were hungry. Her dear heart is too big for her body."

"Her cake is certainly," says Mr. Kelly: here he takes a third enormous pinch out of it, and Desmond follows his example.

"I didn't tell her we had had dinner," says Brian. "It would have taken the gloss off it."

"Off this?" pointing to the smoking structure between them. "I don't believe it."

"No, the deed."

Another silence.

"It's a capital cake," says Mr. Kelly, pensively, who has been eating steadily since the first bite. "After all, give me a good sweet, home-made cake like this! Those bought ones aren't to be named in the same day with it. There is something so light and wholesome about a cake like this."

"Wholesome!" doubtfully: "I don't know about that. What I like about it is that it is hot and spongy. But, look here, you haven't yet said what we are to do with it."

"I think we are doing uncommonly well with it," says Kelly, breaking off another piece.

"But what are we to do with the remains, provided we leave any, which at present seems doubtful?"

"Keep, them, of course. You ought to, considering she gave it you whole as a present."

"You are right: no one shall touch a crumb of it save you and me," says Mr. Desmond, as though inspired. "Let us smuggle it up to my room and keep it there till it is finished."

"I feel as if I was at school again with a plum-cake and a chum," says Mr. Kelly.

"Well, come and follow me up with it now, and distract my uncle's attention if we meet him."

"To my room or yours?" insinuatingly.

"To mine," firmly.

"I'd take the greatest care of it, if you like to trust it to me," with what Kit would certainly have termed "an obliging air."

"I don't doubt you," sardonically. "But certainly not. It was given to me, and I feel myself bound to look after it."

"Pity we can't have it petrified," says Mr. Kelly, thoughtfully. "Then you might hang it round your neck as a trophy." At this they both laugh, and finally the trophy, after much difficulty is satisfactorily stored away.

It is a fortnight later, and desolation has overtaken Monica. Brian has passed out of her active life, has ceased from that seeing and hearing and that satisfaction of touch that belong to a daily intercourse with one beloved. Only in thought can she find him now. He has gone upon that threatened journey to those detested estates of his in Westmeath.

Yesterday he went; and to-day as she wakes it seems to her that a cold and cruel mist has wrapped her world in its embrace. We never know how we prize a thing until we lose it (N. B. – Mark the novelty of this idea;) and now, for the first time, Monica finds herself fully awake to the fact of how necessary Desmond is to her everyday happiness.

She had gone down to the river-side to bid him farewell, and had been calm, almost careless, throughout the interview, —so calm that the young man's heart dies within him, and a latent sense of hope deferred had made it sick.

But just at the very last she had given way, and had flung herself into his embrace, and twined her arms around his neck, – dear, clinging arms – and had broken into bitter weeping. And —

"Don't be long, Brian! don't be long!" she had sobbed, with deep entreaty, and with such a tender passion as had shaken all her slender frame.

So they had "kissed and kissed," and parted. And Desmond, though sad as man may be at the thought that he should look upon her face no more for four long weeks, still left her with a gladder heart than he had ever known. Her tears were sweet to him, and in her grief he found solace for his own.

And, indeed, as the days flew by, they found the pain of absence was checkered by dreams of the reunion that lay before them; and each day, as it was born, and grew, and died, and so was laid upon the pile of those already gone, was a sad joy to them, and counted not so much a day lost as one gained.

"We take no note of time but from its loss." This loss in the present instance was most sweet to Monica and her lover. To them Time was the name of a slow and cruel monster, whose death was to be desired.

And now the monster is slain, and to-day Brian will return to Coole. A few lines full of joyful love and glad expectancy had been brought to her yesterday by the sympathetic Bridget, who affected an ignorance about the whole matter that utterly imposed on Monica, who would have found a bitterness in sharing her heart's secret with her maid. Yet Bridget knows quite as much about it as she does. To Kit alone has Monica unburdened her soul, and talked, and talked, and talked, on her one fond topic, without discovering the faintest symptom of fatigue in that indefatigable person.

Yes, to-day he comes! Monica had risen with the lark, unable to lie abed with the completion of a sweet desire lying but a few short hours away from her, and had gone through the morning and afternoon in a dreamy state of tender anticipation.

Yet surely not short, but of a terrible length, are these hours. Never has the old clock ticked with such maddening deliberation; yet —

"Be the day weary, or never so long,

At length it ringeth to evensong;"

and at last the old clock, tick it never so slowly, must bring round the hour when she may go down to the river to meet her love again.

But the relentless Fates are against her, and who shall interfere with their woven threads? As though some vile imp of their court had whispered in Miss Priscilla's ear the whole story of her forbidden attachment, she keeps Monica in the morning-room with her, copying out certain recipes of a dry nature, that could have been copied just as well to-morrow, or next year, or never.

As the hour in which she ought to meet her lover comes and goes by, the poor child's pulses throb and her heart beats violently. Kit has gone to the village, and so cannot help her. All seems lost. Her eyes grow large and dark with repressed longing, her hand trembles.

"There, that will do, dear child; thank you," says Miss Priscilla, gratefully, folding up the obnoxious papers and slipping them into the davenport.

It is now quite half an hour past the time appointed by Desmond in his letter. Monica, rising impetuously, moves towards the door.

"Is the writing at an end?" Miss Penelope's voice comes to her from the other end of the room, with a plaintive ring in it. It casts despair upon the hopes that are kindling afresh within her bosom. "Dear, dear! I'm so glad! Monica, come to me, and help me with this wool. It has got so entangled that only bright eyes like yours," with a loving smile, "can rescue it from its hopeless state."

Poor Monica! after one passionate inclination to rebel, her courage fails her, and she gives in, and taking the tangled skein of wool (that reminds her in a vague, sorrowful fashion of her own hapless love story) between her slender fingers, bends over it.

Her cheeks are aflame. Her eyes are miserable but tearless. It all seems too cruel. There sits Aunt Priscilla at the davenport, with a smile of triumph on her lips, as she finds her accounts right to a halfpenny. Here sits Aunt Penelope fanning herself with soft complacency, because the day, though of September, is sultry as of hot July. And all this time Brian is walking impatiently to and fro upon the tiny beach, thinking her cold, unloving, indifferent, watching with straining, reproachful eyes the path along which she ought to come.

This last thought is just too much. A great fire kindles in her beautiful eyes; the spirit of defiance seizes on her gentle breast; her lips quiver; her breath comes from between them with a panting haste. "Yes! she will go to him, she will!" She rises to her feet.

Just at that moment the door is flung wide open, and Desmond enters the room.

CHAPTER XXVIII

How the Misses Blake receive the nephew of their sworn foe – How Monica at all hazards proclaims her truth – And how Miss Priscilla sees something that upsets her and the belief of years.

One moment of coma ensues. It is an awful moment, in which nobody seems even to breathe. The two Misses Blake turn into a rigidity that might mean stone; the young man pauses irresolutely, yet with a sternness about his lips that bespeaks a settled purpose not to be laid aside for any reason, and that adds some years to his age.

Monica has turned to him. The tangled wool has fallen unconsciously from her hands to her feet. Her lips are parted, her eyes wide: she sways a little. Then a soft rapturous cry breaks from her, there is a simultaneous movement on his part and on hers; and then – she is in his arms.

For a few moments speech is impossible to them: there seems nothing in the wide world but he to her, and she to him.

Then he lifts her face, and looks at her long and eagerly.

"Yes, I have found you again, my love, —at last," he says.

"Ah! how long it has seemed!" whispers she, with tears in her eyes.

The old ladies might have been in the next county, so wrapt are they in their happy meeting. Their hearts are beating in unison; their souls are in their eyes. She has reached her home, – his breast, – and has laid her heart on his. The moment is perfect, and as near heaven as we poor mortals can attain until kindly death comes to our aid.

It is but a little moment, however. It passes, and recollection returns. Monica, raising her head, sees the two Misses Blake standing side by side, with folded, nerveless hands, and fixed eyes, and horror-stricken faces. Shrinking still closer to her lover, Monica regards them with a troubled conscience and with growing fear. She is at last discovered, and her sin is beyond redemption.

She trembles in Desmond's arms, and pales visibly. But the frantic beating of her heart against his renders him strong and bold. He throws up his head, with the action of one determined to fight to the death. No one shall ever take her from him. He is only too anxious to enter the lists and do battle for his love.