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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.

And then, as his eyes light upon his foes, his spirit dies. Poor old ladies, so stupefied, so stricken! are they not already conquered? Looking at the frail front they present, he feels his weapons must be blunted in this fight, his gloves anything but steel.

A terrible silence fills the room, – a silence that grows almost unbearable, until at length it is broken by Miss Priscilla. Her voice is low, and hushed and broken.

"Monica, why did you deceive us?" she says.

There is reproach, agonized disappointment, in her tone, but no anger.

To these poor old women the moment is tragical. The child of their last years – the one thing they had held most dear and sacred – has proved unworthy, has linked herself with the opposition, has entered the lists of the enemy. They are quite calm, though trembling. Their grief is too great for tears. But they stand together, and there is a lost and heart-broken look about them.

Monica, seeing it, breaks away from her lover's restraining arms, and, running to Miss Priscilla, falls down on her knees before her, and, clasping her waist with her soft, white arms, bursts into bitter tears. She clings to Miss Priscilla; but the old lady, though her distress is very apparent, stands proudly erect, and looks not at her, but at Desmond. The tears gather slowly in her eyes – tears come ever slowly to those whose youth lies far behind – and fall upon the repentant sunny head; but the owner shows no sign of forgiveness; yet I think she would have dearly liked to take the sweet sinner in her arms, to comfort and forgive her, but for the pride and wounded feeling that overmastered her.

"Your presence here, sir, is an insult," she says to Desmond, meaning to be stern; but her grief has washed away the incivility of her little speech and has left it only vaguely reproachful. Desmond lowers his head before her gaze, and refrains from answer or explanation. A great sorrow for the defencelessness of their sorrow has arisen in his breast for these old aunts, and killed all meaner thoughts. I think he would have felt a degree of relief if they had both fallen upon him, and said hard things to him, and so revenged themselves in part.

Monica is sobbing bitterly. Not able to endure her grief, Desmond, going even to the feet of Miss Priscilla, tries to raise her from the ground. But she clings even more closely to Miss Priscilla, and so mutely refuses to go to him.

A pang, a sudden thought, shoots through him, and renders him desperate. Will they be bad to his poor little girl when he is gone? will they scold her?

"Oh, madam," he says to Miss Priscilla, with a break in his voice, "try to forgive her; be gentle with her. It was all my fault, – mine entirely. I loved her, and when she refused to hear me plead my cause, and shrunk from me because of that unhappy division that separates my family from yours, and because of her reverence for your wishes, I still urged her, and induced her to meet me secretly."

"You did an evil deed, sir," says Miss Priscilla.

"I acknowledge it. I am altogether to blame," says Desmond, hastily. "She has had nothing to do with it. Do not, I beseech you, say anything to her when I am gone that may augment her self-reproach." He looks with appealing eyes at Miss Blake, his hand on Monica's shoulder, who has her face hidden in a fold of her aunt's gown.

"Sir," says Miss Priscilla, drawing herself up, with a touch of old-world grandeur in her manner, but a sad tremulousness in her tone, "my niece has been with us now for some time, and we have dared to hope she has been treated in accordance with the great love we feel for her."

"The great love," echoes Miss Penelope, gently. Though deeply distressed, both old ladies are conscious of a subdued admiration for the young man, because of the tenderness of his fears for his beloved.

"But if," says Miss Priscilla, with a mournful glance at the pretty bowed head – "if she thinks we have failed in our love towards her, as indeed it seems it may be, by your finding it necessary to ask us to treat her with kindness in this trouble, – we can only say to her that we regret, – that we – " Here she breaks down, and covers her sad old face with her trembling hands.

Monica springs to her feet.

"Oh, auntie!" she says, a world of love and reproach and penitence in her voice. She throws her arms round her aunt's neck; and, Miss Priscilla clasping her in turn, somehow in one moment the crime is condoned, and youth and age are met in a fond embrace.

"Go, sir," says Miss Priscilla, presently, without lifting her eyes. There is so much gentleness in her tone that the young man is emboldened to ask a question.

"You will permit me to come to-morrow, to – to – plead my cause?" he says, anxiously.

Miss Priscilla hesitates, and a pang of apprehension rushes through his heart. He is almost in despair, when Miss Penelope's voice breaks the oppressive silence.

"Yes. Come to-morrow," she says, pressing Miss Priscilla's arm. "To-day we are too tired, too upset. To-morrow let it be."

"I thank you madam," says Desmond, humbly; and then he turns to go, but still lingers, with grieved eyes fixed on Monica.

"Monica, you will give me one parting word?" he says, at last, as though the petition is wrung from him.

Still holding Miss Priscilla's hand, she turns to him, and, raising her other arm, places it softly round his neck. Holding them both thus, she seems the embodiment of the spirit that must in the end unite them. Her position compels her to throw back her head a little, and she smiles at him, a sad little smile, but bright with love and trust.

"Not a parting word," she says, with a sweetness so grave as to be almost solemn.

"You will be true to me?" says Desmond, reckless of listeners. He has his arms round her, and is waiting for her answer with a pale, earnest face. Something in the whole scene touches the two kindly old maids with a sense of tender reverence.

"Until my death," says the girl, with slow distinctness, laying her head against the gray sleeve of his coat.

A great wave of color – born of emotion and love that is stronger than the grave – sweeps over his face. He stoops and lays his lips on hers. When he is gone, Monica turns suddenly upon Miss Priscilla.

"Do not say a word to me!" she cries, feverishly; "I could not bear it —now. I may have done wrong, but I am not sorry for it. I love him. That should explain everything to you; it means all to me! Nothing can alter that! And I will have nothing said, – nothing; and – "

"Nothing shall be said, dear child," says Miss Penelope, gently. "Everything shall be as you wish with regard to us. Can you not trust us to spare you where we can?"

"I am ungrateful. I must go and think it all out," says Monica, stoutly, pressing her hands against her head. She turns away. A little cry breaks from Miss Priscilla.

"Oh! not without kissing us too, Monica!" she says, in a broken voice, holding out her arms to her niece. Monica throws herself into them.

Long and eager is the discussion that follows on the girl's disappearance.

The two Misses Blake, side by side, argue (with what they erroneously term dispassionate calmness) the case just laid before them.

"I don't know what is to be done," says Miss Priscilla, at length: "all I do know is that, for her sake, consent will be impossible."

"And what is to be said to him to-morrow? He looks so earnest, so – full of her. What is to be said to him?"

"So his uncle looked at her mother," says Miss Priscilla, with a terrible bitterness; "and what came of that? Is this young man to steal from us our best and dearest – as he did? Be firm, Penelope. For her sake crush this attachment before the fickleness that is in his blood asserts itself to break her heart."

"I fear it will be broken either way," says Miss Penelope, who has a secret hankering after all true lovers.

"At least her self-respect will be spared, and for that she will thank us later on. She must give him up!"

"Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, in a low tone, "supposing she refuses to do it?"

"When I have fully explained the matter to her, she will withdraw her refusal," says Miss Priscilla, very grandly, but her expression is not up to her tone in anyway. It is, indeed, depressed and uncertain.

"He struck me as being a very attractive young man," ventures Miss Penelope absently.

"Humph!" says Miss Priscilla.

"And – but that would be impossible in one of his name – a very lovable young man," says Miss Penelope, timidly.

"Hah!" says Miss Priscilla: this ejaculation is not meant for surprise or acquiescence, but is merely a warlike snort.

"And very loving, too," says Miss Penelope, dreamily. "I never saw such eyes in my life! and he never took them off her."

"Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, with such a sudden and awful amount of vehemence as literally makes Miss Penelope jump, "I am ashamed of you. Whatever we – that is" (slightly confused) "you may think about that young man, please keep it to yourself, and at least let me never hear you speak of a Desmond in admiring terms."

So saying, she stalks from the rooms and drives down to the village to execute a commission that has been hanging over her for a fortnight, and which she chooses to-day to fulfil, if only to prove to the outer world that she is in no wise upset by the afternoon excitement.

Yet in a very short time she returns from her drive, and with a countenance so disturbed that Miss Penelope's heart is filled with fresh dismay.

"What is it?" she says, following Miss Priscilla into her own room. "You have heard something further; you have seen – "

"Yes, I have seen him– young Desmond," says Miss Priscilla, with an air of much agitation. "It was just outside the village, on my way home; and he was carrying a little hurt child in his arms, and he was hushing it so tenderly; and – the little one was looking up in his face – and he kissed it – and —Why isn't he a bad, wicked young man?" cries Miss Priscilla, in a frenzy of despair, bursting into tears.