Читать книгу: «Rossmoyne», страница 24
"So be it," she says gravely.
"You mean it?" says Ronayne, as yet afraid to believe in his happiness.
"Yes. But if ever you repent blame yourself."
"And if you repent?"
"I shall blame you too," she says, with a sudden return to her old archness.
"And you will refuse Rossmoyne?"
She laughs outright at this, and glances at him from under drooping lashes.
"I can't promise that," she says, with carefully simulated embarrassment – "because – "
"What?" haughtily, moving away from her.
"I did so yesterday."
"Oh, darling, how cruelly I misjudged you! I thought – I feared – "
"Never mind all that. I know – I forgive you. I've a lovely temper," says Olga, with self-gratulation.
"Why did you refuse him? Was it," hopefully, "because you didn't like him?"
"N – o. Not so much that – as – " again this shameless coquette hesitates, and turns her head uneasily from side to side, as though afraid to give utterance to the truth.
"What? Explain, Olga," says her lover, in a fresh agony.
"As that I —loved you!" returns she, with a heavenly smile.
His arms close round her, and at this moment she lets all her heart be seen by him. The mocking light dies out of her eyes, her face grows earnest. She lets her heart beat with happy unrestraint against his. The minutes fly, but time was never made to be counted by blissful lovers.
A gong sounding in the distance rouses them from their contented dreaming.
"I must go and tell Hermia," she says, starting to her feet: "that is the dressing-bell."
"You won't let her influence you against me?"
"Nobody could do that." She moves away from him, and then runs back to him again and lays her arms round his neck.
"You are more to me now than Hermia and the world!" she says, softly.
Yet presently, when she finds herself in Hermia's calm presence, her courage somewhat fails her. It is not that she for a moment contemplates the idea of having to give up her lover, but she is afraid of her cousin's cold disparagement of both him and her.
"I have just promised to marry Ulic," she says, plunging without preface into her story, with a boldness born of nervous excitement.
"To marry him! Why, I thought you looked upon him as a mere boy! Your 'baby,' you used to call him."
"Probably that is why I have accepted him. A baby should not be allowed to roam the world at large without some one to look after him."
"Do you love him, Olga?"
"Yes, I do," says Olga, defiantly. "You may scold me if you like, but a title isn't everything, and he is worth a dozen of that cold, stiff Rossmoyne."
"Well, dearest, as you have given him the best part of you, – your heart, – it is as well the rest should follow," says Mrs. Herrick, tenderly. "Yes, I think you will be very happy with him."
This speech is so strange, so unexpected, so exactly unlike anything she had made up her mind to receive, that for a moment Olga is stricken dumb. Then with a rush she comes back to glad life.
"'Do I wake? do I dream? are there visions about?'" she says. "Why, what sentiments from you! You have 'changed all that,' apparently."
"I have," says Hermia, very slowly, yet with a vivid blush. Something in her whole manner awakes suspicion of the truth in Olga's mind.
"Why," she says, "you don't mean to tell me that – Oh, no! it can't be true! and yet – I verily believe you have —Is it so, Hermia?"
"It is," says Hermia, who has evidently, by help of some mental process of her own, understood all this amazing farrago of apparently meaningless words.
There is a new sweetness on Mrs. Herrick's lips. One of her rare smiles lights up all her calm, artistic face.
"After all your vaunted superiority!" says Olga, drawing a deep sigh. "Oh, dear!" Then, with a wicked but merry imitation of Mrs. Herrick's own manner to her, she goes on! —
"You are throwing yourself away, dearest. The world will think nothing of you for the future; and you, so formed to shine, and dazzle, and – "
"He will be a baronet at his father's death," says Mrs. Herrick, serenely, with a heavy emphasis on the first pronoun; and then suddenly, as though ashamed of this speech, she lets her mantle drop from her, and cries, with some tender passion, —
"I don't care about that. Hear the truth from me. If he were as ugly and poor as Mary Browne's Peter, I should marry him all the same, just because I love him!"
"Oh, Hermia, I am so glad," says Olga. "After all what is there in the whole wide world so sweet as love? And as for Rossmoyne, – why, he couldn't make a tender speech to save his life as it should be made; whilst Ulic —oh he's charming!"
CHAPTER XXXI
How Monica's heart fails her; and how at last Hope (whose name is Brian) comes back to her through the quivering moonlight.
And now night has fallen at last upon this long day. A gentle wind is shivering through the elms; a glorious moon has risen in all its beauty, and stands in "heaven's wide, pathless way," as though conscious of its grandeur, yet sad for the sorrows of the seething earth beneath. Now clear, now resplendent she shines, and now through a tremulous mist shows her pure face, and again for a space is hidden,
"As if her head she bow'd
Stooping through a fleecy cloud."
Miss Priscilla, with a sense of now-found dignity upon her, has gone early to bed. Miss Penelope has followed suit. Terence, in the privacy of his own room, is rubbing a dirty oily flannel on the bright barrels of his beloved gun, long since made over to him as a gift by Brian.
Kit is sitting on the wide, old-fashioned window-seat in Monica's room at her sister's feet, and with her thin little arms twined lovingly round her. She is sleepy enough, poor child, but cannot bear to desert Monica, who is strangely wakeful and rather silent and distraite. For ever since the morning when he had come to carry Miss Priscilla to Coole, Brian has been absent from her; not once has he come to her; and a sense of chill and fear, as strong as it is foolish, is overpowering her.
She rouses herself now with a little nervous quiver that seems to run through all her veins and lets her hand fall on Kit's drooping head.
"It grows very late. Go to bed, darling," she says, gently.
"Not till you go," says Kit, tightening the clasp of her arms.
"Well, that shall be in a moment, then," says Monica, with a stifled sigh. All through the dragging day and evening she has clung to the thought that surely her lover will come to bid her "good-night." And now it is late, and he has not come, and —
She leans against the side of the wide-open casement, and gazes in sad meditation upon the slumbering garden underneath. The lilies, – "tall white garden-lilies," – though it is late in the season now, and bordering on snows and frosts, are still swaying to and fro, and giving most generously a rich perfume to the wondering air. Earth's stars they seem to her, as she lifts her eyes to compare them with the "forget-me-nots of the angels," up above.
Her first disappointment about her love is desolating her. She leans her head against the woodwork, and lifts her eyes to the vaguely-tinted sky. Thus, with face upturned, she drinks in the fair beauty of the night, and, as its beauty grows upon her, her sorrow deepens.
"With how sad steps, O moon! thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face,
Thou feel'st a lover's case!
I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace,
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries."
As she watches the pale moon, Sidney's sad words return to her. Just now Diana is resting in a path of palest azure, whilst all around her clouds, silver-tinged, are lying out from her, trembling in mid-air.
Great patches of moonlight lie upon the garden sward. One seems brighter than its fellows, and as her eyes slowly sink from heaven to earth they rest upon it, as though attracted unconsciously by its brilliancy. And, even as she looks, a shadow falls athwart it, and then a low, quick cry breaks from her lips.
"What is it?" says Kit, scrambling to her knees.
"Only Brian," says Monica, with a hastily-drawn breath. A rich color has rushed into her cheeks, her eyes are alight, her lips have curved themselves into a happy smile.
"It's all right now, then, and I can go," says Kit, joyfully.
"Go? To bed, you mean, darling?"
"Yes, now I know you are happy," says Kit, tenderly; and then the sisters embrace, and presently Monica is alone, but for the shadow in the moonlight.
"It is you, Monica?" says Brian, coming close beneath her window, and looking upwards.
She leans out to him, her white gown gleaming softly in the moon's rays.
"Oh, why venture out at this hour?" she says, nervously. Now he is here, – woman-like, – fears for his safety, forgotten before, arise in all their horror. "They may have followed you; they may – "
"Come down to the balcony," he interrupts her, with a light laugh. "I want to talk to you. Nonsense, dear heart! I am as safe as a church. Who would touch me, with an angel like you near to protect me?"
His shadow, as he moves away, may again be seen for an instant, before he turns the corner of the old house; and Monica, opening her door softly, runs lightly down the corridor and the staircase, and across the hall and the drawing-room floor until she reaches the balcony beyond, where she finds his arms awaiting her.
"You have missed me all day?" he says, after a pause that to them has been divine.
"Oh, Brian, what a day it has been!" she clings to him. "All these past hours have been full of horror. Whenever I thought of your danger last night, I seemed to grow cold and dead with fear; and then when the minutes slipped by, and still you never came to me, I began to picture you as cold and dead, and then – Ah!" she clings still closer to him, and her voice fails her. "I never knew," she whispers, brokenly, "how well I loved you until I so nearly lost you. I could not live without you now."
"Nor shall you," returns he, straining her to his heart with passionate tenderness. "My life is yours, to do what you will with it. And somehow all day long I knew (and was happy in the knowledge, forgive me that) that you were lonely for want of me; but I could not come to you, my soul, until this very moment. Yet, believe me, I suffered more than you during our long separation." (If any one laughs here, it will prove he has never been in love, and so is an object of pity. This should check untimely mirth.)
"You felt it long too, then?" says Monica, hopefully.
"How can you ask me that? Your darling face was never once out of my mind, and yet I could not come to you. I had so many things to do, so many people to see, and then the poor old fellow was so ill. But have we not cause to be thankful? – at last the breach between our houses is healed, and we may tell all the world of our love."
"You should have heard Aunt Priscilla, how she talked of you when she came back to-day from Coole," says Monica, in a little fervent glow of enthusiasm. "It was beautiful! You know she must have understood you all along to be able to say the truth of you so well. She said so much in your favor that she satisfied even me."
She says this with such a graceful naivete, and such an utter belief in his superiority to the vast majority of men, that Mr. Desmond does well to feel the pride that surges in his heart.
"I really think she has fallen in love with you," says Miss Beresford, at the last, with a little gay laugh.
"Perhaps that is why she refused the squire," says Brian; and then he basely betrays trust, by telling her all that tale of the late wooing of Miss Priscilla, and its result, which awakens in the breast of that ancient lady's niece a mirth as undutiful as it is prolonged.
"And what were you doing all day?" she says, when it has somewhat subsided.
"Trying to keep my uncle – did I tell you he has fallen in love with your photograph? – from talking himself into a brain fever, and I was swearing hard, and – "
"Brian!"
"Only informations, darling! And I wouldn't have done that either, only I had to. They made me. Lay the blame on 'they.' It wasn't my fault, indeed. If I had thought for a moment you had the slightest objection to that sort of – "
"Nonsense! don't be silly; go on," says Miss Beresford, austerely.
"Well, then, I listened patiently to a good deal of raving from Kelly on the subject of Hermia Herrick. I don't suppose I should have exhibited as much patience as I did, but for the fact that I was waiting on George – my uncle – at the time, and couldn't get away. And after that I listened with even more patience to a perfect farrago of nonsense from our sub-inspector about the would-be assassin we have caught, and his fellows; and, besides all this, I thought of you every moment since last I saw you."
"Every moment. Not one neglected?" asks she, smiling.
"I'll swear to that too, if you like. I'm in good practice now."
"No, no," hastily. "I can believe you without that."
"Did you hear about your Ryde?" asks Desmond, suddenly.
"I disclaim the possession," says Monica. "But what of him?"
"He has been ordered, with his regiment, to Egypt, to fight Arabi, where I hope he will be shot. And the 36th are coming in his place."
"How can you say such shocking things?"
"Is it shocking to say the 36th are coming to Clonbree?"
"No, but what you said about Mr. Ryde."
"Oh, that! Well, I hope, then, if they don't knock the life they will knock the conceit and the superfluous flesh out of him: will that do?"
"Very badly. He was a horrid man in many ways, but he did you no harm."
"He dared to look at you."
"The cat may look at the king."
"But the cat may not look at my queen. So now, madam, what have you to say?"
"Well, never mind, then: tell me about Hermia. So Mr. Kelly is engaged to her?"
"Yes. He has just discovered her to be the most superior as well as the loveliest woman upon earth. He told me so. I ventured mildly, but firmly, to differ with him and enter a protest on your behalf, but he wouldn't hear of it. In his opinion you are nowhere beside the majestic Hermia."
"I know that. He is right," says Monica, meekly. But there is a reproachful question in her eyes, as she says it, that contradicts the meekness.
"He is not," says Desmond, with loving indignation, pressing her dear little head so close against his heart that she can hear it throbbing bravely and can find joy in the thought that each separate throb is all her own. "The man who thinks so must be insane. A fig for Hermia! Where would she be if placed beside you, my 'Helen fair beyond compare'?"
"You are prejudiced; you tell too flattering a tale," says Monica, with soft disparagement; but the fond, foolish, lover-like words are very dear and sweet to her, all the same.
He has his arms round her; in her tender childish fashion she has laid her cheek against his; and now, with a slow movement, she turns her head until her lips reach his.
"I love you," she whispers.
Almost in a sigh the words are breathed, and a sense of rapture – of completion – renders the young man for the instant mute. Yet in her soul so well she knows of his content that she cares little for any answer save that which his fond eyes give.
A breath from the sleeping world of flowers below comes up to the balcony and bathes the lovers in its sweets. The "wandering moon" looks down upon them, and lights up the dark windows behind them, till they looked like burnished silver. A deadly silence lies on grass and bough; it seems to them as though, of all the eager world, they two only are awake, and alone!
"Do I count with you, then, as more than all?" he says, at length; "than Terence or than Kit?"
"You know it," she says, earnestly.
Suddenly he loosens his arms from round her, and, pushing her slender, white-robed figure gently backwards, gazes searchingly into her calm but wondering face.
"Tell me," he says, – some mad, inward craving driving him to ask the needless question – "how would it have been with you if I had been killed yesterday? Would you in time have loved again?"
I am not sure, but I think he would have recalled the words when it is too late. A quiver runs through the girl's frame; a great wave of emotion sweeping over her face transfigures it, changing its calm to quick and living grief. The moonbeams, catching her, fold her in floods of palest glory, until he who watches her with remorseful eyes can only liken her to a fragile saint, as she stands there in her white, clinging draperies.
"You are cruel," she says, at last, with a low, gasping cry.
He falls at her feet.
"Forgive me, my love, my darling!" he entreats, "I should never have said that, and yet I am glad I did. To feel, to know you are altogether mine – "
"You had a doubt?" she says; and then two large tears rise slowly, until her beautiful eyes look passionate reproach at him through a heavy mist. Then the mist clears, and two shining drops, quitting their sweet home, fall upon the back of the small hand she has placed nervously against her throat.
"A last one, and it is gone forever." He rises to his feet. "Place your arms round my neck again," he says, with anxious entreaty, "and let me feel myself forgiven."
A smile, as coy as it is tender, curves her dainty lips, as she lifts to his two, soft, dewy eyes, in which the light of a first love has at last been fully kindled. She comes a step nearer to him, still smiling, – a lovely thing round which the moonbeams riot as though in ecstasy over her perfect fairness, – and then in another instant they are both in heaven, "in paradise in one another's arms!"
"You are happy?" questions he, after a long pause, into which no man may look.
"I am with you," returns she, softly.
"How sweet a meaning lies within your words!"
"A true meaning. But see, how late it grows! For a few hours we must part. Until to-morrow – good-night!"
"Good-night, my life! my sweet, sweet heart!" says Desmond.
