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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."

A tall girl oppressed by freckles and with hair of a deep – well, let us emulate our polite French neighbors and call it blond ardent.

"Who is she?" asks Lord Rossmoyne, who arrived about an hour ago, to Ulic Ronayne's discomfiture.

"She's a fraud!" says Mr. Kelly, indignantly, – "a swindle! Madam assured us, last night, a charming girl was coming, to turn all heads and storm all hearts; and to-day, when we rushed in a body to the window and flattened our noses against the panes to see her, lo! a creature with red hair and pimples – "

"No, no; freckled, my dear Owen," interrupts Olga, indolently.

"It is all the same at a distance! general effect fatal in both cases," says Mr. Kelly, airily. "It makes one positively uncomfortable to look at her. I consider her being thrust upon us like this a deliberate insult. I think if she continues I shall leave."

"Oh, don't," says Desmond, in a tone of agonized entreaty. "How should we manage to get on without you?"

"Badly, badly, I know that," regretfully. "But it is a question of breaking either your hearts or mine. Some of us must go to the wall; it would be unfair to the world to make it me."

"I don't believe you will go far," says Mrs. Herrick, slowly. Kelly glances at her quickly, but she does not lift her eyes from the little sock, and her fingers move rapidly, easily as ever.

"London or Paris," he says, – "the city of fogs or the city of frogs. I don't know which I prefer."

"Better stay where you are," says Brian.

"Well, I really didn't think her so very plain," says Bella Fitzgerald, who thinks it pretty to say the kind thing always. "A large mouth is an affliction, certainly; and as for her complexion – but really, after all, it is better to see it as it is than painted and powdered, as one sees other people."

This is a faint cut at Olga, who is fond of powder, and who has not scrupled to add to her charms by a little touch of rouge now and then when she felt pallor demanded it.

"I think a little artificial aid might improve poor Miss Browne," says Hermia Herrick. Miss Browne is the new arrival.

"I don't. I think it is an abominable thing to cheat the public like that," says Miss Fitzgerald, doggedly: "nobody respectable would do it. The demi-monde paint and powder."

"Do they? how do you know, dear?" asks Olga Bohun, sweetly.

Miss Fitzgerald, feeling she has made a faux-pas, colors violently, tries to get herself out of it, and flounders helplessly. Lord Rossmoyne is looking surprised, Ulic Ronayne and Desmond amused.

"Every one says so," says the fair Bella, at last, in a voice that trembles with anger: "you know very well they do."

"I don't, indeed, my dear Bella. My acquaintance with – er – that sort of person has been limited: I quite envy you your superior knowledge."

Here Olga laughs a little, low, rippling laugh that completes her enemy's defeat. After the laugh there is a dead silence.

"I think somebody ought to remove the poor little child," says Mr. Kelly, in a low, impressive tone, pointing to Mrs. Herrick's little girl. At which everybody laughs heartily, and awkwardness is banished.

"Browne? – I knew an Archibald Browne once: anything to this girl?" asks Lord Rossmoyne, hurriedly, unwilling to let silence settle down on them again.

"Big man with a loose tie?" asks Ulic.

"Ye-es. There was something odd about his neck, now I remember," says Rossmoyne.

"That was her father. He had an idea he was like Lord Byron, and always wore his necktie flying in the wind."

"He couldn't manage it, though," says Mr. Kelly, with as near an attempt at mirth as he ever permits himself. "It always flew the wrong way. Byron's, if you call to mind his many portraits, always flew over his left shoulder; old Browne's wouldn't. By the bye," thoughtfully, "Byron must have had a wind of his own, mustn't he? our ordinary winds don't always blow in the same direction, do they?"

"I would that a wind could arise to blow you in some direction, when you are in such an idle mood as now," says Mrs. Herrick, in a low tone.

"If it would blow me in your direction, I should say amen to that," in a voice as subdued as her own.

"May the Fates avert from me a calamity so great!"

"You will have to entreat them very diligently, if you hope to escape it."

"Are you so very determined, then?"

"Yes. Although I feel I am mocked by the hope within me, still I shall persist."

"You waste your time."

"I am content to waste it in such a cause. Yet I am sorry I am so distasteful to you."

"That is not your fault. I forgive you that."

"What is it, then, you can't forgive in me?"

"Not more than I can't forgive in another. 'God made you all, therefore let you all pass for men.' I don't deal more hardly with you than with the rest, you see. You are only one of many."

"That is the unkindest thing you ever said to me. And that is saying much. Yet I, too, will beseech the Fates in my turn."

"To grant you what?"

"The finding of you in a gentler mind."

The faintest flicker of a smile crosses her lips. She lays her knitting on her knee for an instant, that she may the more readily let her tapered fingers droop until they touch the pale brow of the child at her feet; then she resumes it again, with a face calm and emotionless as usual.

"Old Browne's girl can't owe her father much," Desmond is saying apropos of something both lost and gone before, so far as Kelly and Mrs. Herrick are concerned.

"About a hundred thousand pounds," says Ronayne. "She is quite a catch, you know. No end of money. The old fellow died a year ago."

"No, he didn't; he demised," says Kelly, emerging from obscurity into the light of conversation once more. "At least, so the papers said. There is a tremendous difference, you know. A poor man dies, a rich man demises. One should always bear in mind that important social distinction."

"And the good man! What of him?" says Desmond, looking at his friend. "What does Montgomery say?"

"Yes, that is very mysterious," says Kelly, with bated breath. "According to Montgomery, 'the good man never dies.' Think of that! Never dies. He walks the earth forever, like a superannuated ghost, only awfuller."

"Have you ever seen one?" asks Olga, leaning forward.

"What? a man that never died? Yes, lots of 'em. Here's one," laying his hand upon his breast.

"No. A man that never will die?"

"How can I answer such a question as that? Perhaps Ronayne, there, may be such a one."

"How stupid you are! I mean, did you ever meet a man who couldn't die?"

"Never, – if he went the right way about it."

"Then, according to your showing, you have never seen a good man." She leans back again in her chair, fatigued but satisfied.

"I'm afraid they are few and far between," says Hermia.

"Now and again they have appeared," says Mr. Kelly, with a modest glance. "Perhaps I shall never die."

"Don't make us more unhappy than we need be," says Mrs. Herrick, plaintively.

"How sad that good men should be so scarce!" says Miss Fitzgerald, with a glance she means to be funny, but which is only dull.

"Don't make trite remarks, Bella," says Mrs. Bohun, languidly. "You know if you did meet one he would bore you to death. The orthodox good man, the oppressive being we read about, but never see, is unknown to me or you, for which I, at least, am devoutly grateful."

"To return to old Browne," says Ulic: "he wasn't good, if you like. He was a horrid ill-tempered, common old fellow, thoroughly without education of any kind."

"He went through college, however, as he was fond of boasting whenever he got the chance."

"And when he didn't get it he made it."

"In at one door and out at the other, that's how he went through Trinity," says Mr. Kelly. "Oh, how I hated that dear old man, and how he hated me!"

"You admit, then, the possibility of your being hated?" says Mrs. Herrick.

"I have admitted that ever since – I met —you! But old Browne bore me a special grudge."

"And your sin against him?"

"I never fathomed it. 'The atrocious crime of being a young man,' principally, I think. Once, I certainly locked him up in his own wine-cellar, and left him there for six hours, under the pretence that I believed him to be a burglar, but nothing more. He quite disliked being locked in the cellar, I think. It was very dark, I must admit. But I'm not afraid of the dark."

"That's a good thing," says Madam O'Connor, entering, "because it will soon envelop you. Did any one ever see so dark an evening for the time of year? Well, I do think that fire looks cheerful, though it is warm. Has Mary Browne come down yet?"

"No. Come here, Madam; here's a cosey seat I have been keeping sacred for you for the past hour. Why have you denied us the light of your countenance all this weary time?"

"Get out with you now, and your fine compliments to an old woman!" says Madam, laughing. "If I were your sweetheart, Owen, I'd never believe a word out of your lips."

Mrs. Herrick, laying down her knitting, raises her head, and looks full into Kelly's eyes. As she does so, a smile, lovely as it is unexpected, warms all her statuesque face into perfect beauty.

"And this to me!" says Kelly, addressing his hostess, and pretending to be blind to Mrs. Herrick's glance. "All the afternoon I have been treated by your sex with the most consummate cruelty. With their tongues they have been stabbing me as with so many knives. But yours is the unkindest cut of all. It is, in fact, the – er – carving-knife!"

"Oh! here's the tea," says Olga, in a pleased tone. "Madam, please let me pour it out to-night?"

"Of course, my love, and thank you too."

"And may I to-morrow evening?" asks Monica, with childish eagerness and a quick warm blush.

"You may, indeed, my pretty one; and I hope it won't be long before you pour me out my tea in your own house."

Monica laughs, and kisses her, and Desmond, who is standing near them, stoops over Madam O'Connor and tells her he would like to kiss her too, – first, for her own sake, and secondly, for that sweet hope of hers just uttered.

"Not a bit of it," says she, in return, in a tone as sprightly as it was twenty years ago, though too low for Monica to hear. "Your first and second reasons are all humbug. Say at once you want to kiss me because you think this child's caress still lingers on my lips. Ah ha! – you see I know more than you think, my lad. And hark you, Brian, come here till I whisper a word in your ear; I'm your friend, boy, in the matter, and I wish you luck, though Priscilla Blake kill me for it; that's what I want to say."

"I couldn't desire a better friend," says Brian gratefully.

"And where on earth is Mary Browne?" says Madam O'Connor. "She is such a nice girl, though hardly a Venus. Owen, my dear, I want you to take her down to dinner, and to make yourself charming to her."

"I shall be only too pleased," says Mr. Kelly, faintly; and then he sinks back in his chair and covers his face with his hands.

"We were talking about Miss Browne's father; he was quite a millionaire, wasn't he?" says Lord Rossmoyne, who is standing at the tea-table beside Olga. He is a very rich man himself, and has, therefore, a due regard for riches in others.

"He was, – and the most unpleasant person I ever met in my life, into the bargain," says Madam O'Connor. "I'm sure the life he led that poor Mary! – I never felt more relieved at anything than at the news of his death."

"I feel as if I could weep for Mary," says Mr. Kelly, in an aside to Mrs. Herrick, who takes no notice of him. "I wonder if she has got a little lamb," he goes on, unrebuked.

"What about the lamb?" says Madam, whose ears are young as ever.

"I was only conjecturing as to whether your cousin Mary had a little lamb," says Mr. Kelly, genially. "The old Mary had, you know. A dear little animal with its

 
'Fleece as white as snow;
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.'
 

You recollect, don't you? What does Miss Browne do with hers? Has she got it upstairs in her room, now? After all, – though the idea is sweetly pretty, – I think there might be certain places into which it would be awkward to have even the whitest lamb trotting after one. Eh?"

"I suppose Miss Browne is rich enough to indulge in any vagaries that may occur to her," says Bella Fitzgerald.

"There's nothing like money," says Olga, with a sigh; at which Lord Rossmoyne looks hopeful, and young Ronayne despondent.

"Like leather, you mean," says Owen Kelly: "that's the real thing to get hold of."

"Some people would do anything for money," says Miss Fitzgerald, with a spiteful glance in Olga's direction. "They would sell themselves for it." Here she turns her cold eyes upon Ronayne, who is standing erect, handsome, but unmistakably miserable.

"They could hardly sell themselves for a more profitable article," says Olga, with a fine shrug of her soft shoulders.

"So they think. Crœsus, we know, was, and is, allpowerful."

"Oh, no," says Olga, with a little silvery laugh; "you forget my dear Bella. Read it up again, and you will see that Crœsus was once conquered by Cyrus. What became of his power then?"

Her lashes cover her eyes for a moment, and when she lifts them again they are fixed on Ronayne. By some coquettish art she gives him to understand in this single glance that he is Cyrus, Lord Rossmoyne Crœsus. He can conquer the rich lord if he will.

"How idle you are, Mr. Ronayne!" she says aloud. "Come here directly and help me. You know I cannot do without your help." There is the most delicate emphasis possible upon the pronoun. Obedient to her command, he comes, as Rossmoyne, armed with the cups, crosses the hall to Hermia and Miss Fitzgerald.

"Did your eyes speak true just now?" he asks, bending over her under pretext of helping her with the cups.

"What is truth?" asks she, in turn, with a swift upward glance. "Who knows aught of her? She lies buried in a deep well, does she not? Who shall drag her forth?"

She smiles, yet in a somewhat constrained fashion, that assorts ill with the inborn self-possession that as a rule characterizes her. She glances at him hurriedly. How young and handsome and earnest he looks! How full of tenderest entreaty! There is, too, a touch of melancholy in his dark eyes that never came to the birth (she is fain to acknowledge to herself with a pang of remorse) until that day when first they look on her.

He loves her, – that she knows; but Rossmoyne loves her too; and though Ronayne's rent-roll is by no means to be despised, still it counts but as a small one beside that of Rossmoyne's.

And Hermia is right! a title is of use in the world; and nothing is so lasting or so satisfactory as a respectable book at one's banker's. A good match (Hermia again) is the one thing to be desired; it covers all sins. Advice such as this coming from Mrs. Herrick is thoroughly disinterested, as the late lamented Mr. Herrick, having behaved to her like a brute during their mercifully short married life, had died in the odor of sanctity, leaving her complete mistress of all his enormous wealth, and quite free to make a second marriage of her own choosing.

With her (Olga), however, the case is widely different; she is indeed without encumbrances so far as children may so be termed, and she has sufficient means to enable her to get her gowns and things from Paris, but there her independence ends.

As she runs over all this hurriedly in her mind, the desire for riches grows upon her. Yes, there is certainly a great deal of good in Rossmoyne, besides his income; and perhaps a solid sternness is preferable to an airy gayety of manner (this with an irrepressible leaning towards the "airy gayety"); and – and – what a pity it is that Rossmoyne is not Ulic! —

"I will," says Ronayne, alluding to her last remark, in a low but determined tone. "Olga, tell me I am more to you than Rossmoyne."

"The boy you are!" says Olga, with an adorable smile that reaches him through the flickering flashes of the firelight. "The baby!" He is bending over her, and with a light caressing touch she brushes back the hair from his temples. "In a year, nay, in a month, once we are separated, you will see some other face, newer, more desirable, and forget you ever cared for mine."

"If I could believe that, I might find peace. Yet, for all that peace could give me, I would not so believe it. I am yours forever, boy though you deem me; and, yet, is one ever a boy again when one has once truly loved?"

"How often have you truly loved?" with an attempt at lightness that is down-trodden by the intensity of her regard.

"As often as I have seen you. Nay, more than that, every moment since I first saw you; because night and day, whether absent or present, I have been yours in heart and soul."

"You have fatigued yourself! – A long two months!" laughingly.

"A short two months."

"There has been no time for fickleness."

"There never will be, so far as I am concerned. So sure am I of that, that I do not mind praying that Cupid's curse may light upon me if ever I prove unfaithful. You know it?"

"I have but small acquaintance with cursing of any sort."

"Then learn this one, —

 
'They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods they change for worse!'
 

Will you repeat that after me?"

"Wait until I finish my tea; and – unkind as you are – you will give me a little bit of cake, won't you?"

"I would give you everything I possess, if I could."

"You don't possess this cake, you know: it is Madam O'Connor's."

"Oh, Olga, why will you always press me backwards? Am I never to be nearer to you than I am now?"

"I don't see how you could conveniently be very much nearer," says Mrs. Bohun, with a soft laugh.

"After all, I suppose I come under the head of either madman or fool," says Ronayne, sadly. "You are everything to me; I am less than nothing to you."

"Is Lord Rossmoyne to come under the head of 'nothing'? How rude!" says Olga.

"I never thought of him. I was thinking only of how hopelessly I love you."

"Love! How should such a baby as you grasp even the meaning of that word?" says Olga, letting her white lids droop until their long lashes lie upon her cheeks like shadows, while she raises her cup with indolent care to her lips. "Do you really think you know what it means?"

 
"'The dredeful joy, alway that flit so yerne,
All this mene I by Love,'"
 

quotes he, very gently; after which he turns away, and, going over to the fireplace again, flings himself down dejectedly at Monica's feet.

"Are you tired, Mr. Ronayne?" says Monica, very gently. Something in his beautiful face tells her that matters are not going well with him.

"Tired? no," lifting his eyes to her with a smile that belies his words. "It is good of you to ask, though. I wish," earnestly, "you would not call me 'Mr. Ronayne.' I can't bear it from any one I like. Desmond tell her to call me Ulic."

It strikes both Monica and Brian as peculiar that he should appeal to the latter as to one possessed of a certain influence over the former. It strikes Miss Fitzgerald in the same light too, who has been listening to his impetuous entreaty.

Seeing there is something wrong with him, something that might be termed excitement in his manner, Desmond whispers to Monica to do as he desires.

"He is unhappy about something; let him feel you are his friend," he says, in a low tone.

"Come a little farther from the fire, Ulic, – a little nearer to me," says Monica, in a tone of shy friendliness, "and I think you will be more comfortable."

He is more than grateful, I think, though he says nothing only he moves a good deal closer to her, and lays his head against her knee in a brotherly fashion, – need I say unrebuked?

Something in this little scene sends the blood rushing with impatient fervor through Olga's veins. But that she knows Monica well, and that the girl is dear to her, she could have hated her heartily at this moment, without waiting to analyze the motive for her dislike. As it is, she gives the reins to her angry spirit, and lets it drive her where it will. She laughs quite merrily, and says some pretty playful thing to Lord Rossmoyne that all the world can hear, – and Ronayne, be assured, the first of all.

Desmond, with a subdued touch of surprise in his eyes, turns to look at her. But the night has darkened with sullen haste – tired, perhaps, of the day's ill temper – and standing as he does within the magic circle of the firelight, he finds a difficulty in conquering the gloom beyond. This makes his gaze in her direction the more concentrated; and, indeed, when he has separated her features from the mist of the falling night, he still finds it impossible to pierce the impenetrable veil of indifference that covers her every feature.

His gaze thus necessarily prolonged is distasteful to her.

"Brian, don't keep staring at the teapot in that mean fashion," she says, playfully, yet with a latent sense of impatience in her tone. "It is unworthy of you. Go up to Madam O'Connor nobly, cup in hand, and I daresay – if you ask her prettily – she will grant me permission to give you a cup of tea."

Desmond, recovering from his revery with a start accepts the situation literally.

"Will you, Madam?" he says, meekly. "Do." His tone is of the most abject. There is a perceptible trembling about his knee-joints. "Is this the 'air noble'?" he says to Olga, in an undertone. "Have I caught it?"

"You'll catch it in a minute in real earnest, if you don't mend your manners," says Madam, with a laugh. "Give him his tea, Olga, my dear, though he doesn't deserve it."

"Sugar?" says Olga, laconically.

"Yes, please," mendaciously.

"Then you shan't have even one lump, if only to punish you for all your misconduct."

"I thought as much," says Brian, taking his cup thankfully. "Fact is, I can't bear sugar but I knew you would drop it in, in an unlimited degree, if I said the other thing. Not that I have the vaguest notion as to how I have misconducted myself. If I knew, I might set a watch upon my lips."

"Set it on your eyes," says Olga, with meaning.

At this moment a light footfall is heard, and somebody comes slowly across the hall. A merry tongue of fire, flaming upwards, declares it to be the plain Miss Browne.

Mrs. O'Connor has just passed into an adjoining room. Olga is busy with her tray and with her thoughts. Mrs. Herrick, partly turned aside, and oblivious of the approaching guest, is conversing in low tones with Lord Rossmoyne.

No one, therefore, is ready to give the stranger welcome and put her through the ceremony of introduction. Awkwardness is impending, when Monica comes to the rescue. Her innate sense of kindly courtesy conquering her shyness, she rises from her seat, and going up to Miss Browne, who has come to a standstill, lays her hand softly upon hers.

"Come over here and sit by me," she says, nervously, yet with such a gracious sweetness that the stranger's heart goes out to her on the spot, and Brian Desmond, if it be possible, falls more in love with her than ever.

"Thank you," says Miss Browne, pressing gratefully the little hand that lies on hers; and then every one wakes into life and says something civil to her.

Five minutes later the dressing-bell rings, and the scene is at an end.