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CHAPTER VI

How Monica goes to Aghyohillbeg, and meets there an old friend and a very new one.

Time flies, and no man can reach his hand to stay it. A very good thing, too, thinks Monica, as she stands before her looking-glass putting the last pretty touches to her white toilet.

It is Friday. Madam O'Connor's garden-party lies before her, and, probably, other things. Here she blushes at herself, as she sees that pretty soul in the glass, though, indeed, she has no cause to do so; but possibly the vague thought of those "other things" has something to do with it, and perhaps it is for their sake too that she places with such care the heavy, blood-colored rose beneath her chin.

This is the only suspicion of color about her. Her gown is white; her hat is white; long white silk gloves run up her rounded arms as though bent on joining her sleeves far above the elbow. A white Surat sash is tied round her dainty waist. She is looking "as fair as the moon, as lovely as a rose," and altogether distinctly dangerous.

Perhaps she half recognizes this fact, because she smiles at her own reflection, and – vain little girl that she is – stoops forward and kisses herself in the happy glass that holds her even for so brief a minute; after which she summons her maid from her dressing-room beyond.

"Canty," she says, as the "uncle's wife's sister's child" enters, "I am dressed now; and – "

"Shure, so you are, miss; and lovely ye look, more power to ye."

"Make my room very tidy," says Monica, giving her her directions before starting. "And, Canty, I shall want my blue dress for dinner. You can put it out."

"Yes, miss," whereupon Monica prepares to leave the room; but the new maid stops her.

"If ye please, Miss Monica," she says, hesitating, and applying her apron to her lips.

"Yes, Canty?"

"I'd be very thankful to ye, miss, if ye wouldn't call me that."

"Call you what?"

"Canty, miss."

"But," astonished, "isn't it your name?"

"No, miss; me name is Bridget."

"But surely Canty is your name, too?"

"Well, it's me father's name, miss, no doubt; but faix I feel just like a boy when ye call me by it, an' ye wouldn't like me to feel like a boy, miss, would ye?" says the village beauty casting an anxious glance at Monica from her dark Irish eyes, and blushing deeply.

"Certainly not," says Monica, laughing a little. "Very well, Bridget; I shall try to forget you ever had a surname."

"Thank ye, miss," says Bridget, with a sigh of profound relief.

Then Monica runs downstairs, where she finds her aunts in the drawing-room, dressed in their very best silk gowns, waiting for the carriage to come round. There is a little delay, which wasted time the two old ladies spend in endeavoring to drill Terence into shape. Something of this sort is going on as Monica enters.

"When I introduce you to Madam O'Connor or Lady Rossmoyne, my dear boy, be sure you make a very low bow. Nothing distinguishes a gentleman so much from the common herd as the manner of his salute. Now make me a bow, that I may judge of your style." Thus Miss Priscilla.

"I couldn't make one to order like that," says Terence; yet he sulkily complies, making a very short, stiff, and uncompromising nod that makes both aunts lift their hands in dismay.

"Oh, no, my dear! – that won't do at all! Most ungraceful, and totally devoid of the dignity that should inspire it. Now look at me. It should be something like this," making him a reverence that might well have created admiration in the court of Queen Anne.

"Ah, yes! that is something like what it should be," chimes in Miss Penelope, paying a tribute to the talent of her sister. "Priscilla has caught the true tone. I wish, Terence, we could see you more like your dear grandfather; he was a man to bow."

Terence, calling to mind the portrait of his "dear grandfather," as represented in the elaborate gilt frame in the dining-room, in a court suit and a periwig, and with an abominable simper, most devoutly thanks his gods that he is not like unto him. He is, indeed (feeling goaded to the last degree), about to break into unseemly language, when, fortunately, the arrival of the ancient equipage that has done duty at Moyne as state carriage for generations is announced.

The coachman, who is considerably older than Timothy, draws up the old horses before the door with a careful manner that impresses the beholder with the belief that he thinks they would run away in a minute if he relaxed a muscle on the reins; and a small boy who acts as footman and looks decidedly depressed, lets down the rickety steps.

Miss Priscilla Blake then enters the carriage. She is followed with much ceremony by Miss Penelope. After which Monica, who is impressed by the proceedings, and Terence, who is consumed with secret mirth, step in and seat themselves. Then the coachman says, "Gee up!" in exactly the tone he has employed for forty years; and the gloomy boy settling down beside him, they are all presently on the fair road to Aghyohillbeg.

The drive is a very pleasant one, though filled with injunctions of the most obsolete from the Misses Blake as to their behavior, etc. The fact is, that the two old maids are so puffed out with pride at the thought that they will presently introduce to the county the handsome lad and beautiful girl opposite them that they have grown fidgety and over-anxious about the niceties of their presentation.

"Surely," say the Misses Blake to themselves and to each other, "not half so pretty a pair could be produced by any family in the south!"

Which is saying a great deal, as in the south of Ireland a pretty face is more the rule than the exception.

Over the dusty road they go, calmly, carefully, the old horses being unaccustomed to fast ways of any sort; slowly, with much care they pick their aged steps, never stumbling, never swerving, but as certainly never giving way to frivolous haste.

Then, all at once, as it seems to Monica, the hillside seems to break in twain, and a great iron gate appears, into which they turn to drive in their solemn fashion down a dark avenue shaded by swaying elms.

It is a perfect place, old as the hills that surround it, and wild in its loveliness. To right and left great trees, gnarled and moss-grown, and dipping tangles of blackberry and fern; patches of sunlight, amidst the gloom, that rests lovingly upon a glowing wilderness of late bluebells, and, beyond all these broad glimpses of the glorious, restless ocean, as it sleeps in its bay below.

Gazing at all this natural beauty, Monica's soft eyes and heart expand, and, —

 
"Joy rises in her like a summer morn."
 

And then she sees an old house, low, broad, picturesque, with balconies and terraces, and beyond the house slanting lawns, and at one side tennis-courts, where many gayly-clad figures are moving to and fro. There is a sound of subdued laughter and the perfume of many flowers, and a general air of gayety; it is as though to-day care has utterly forgotten this one favored corner of the earth.

Then they all descend from the time honored chariot, and cross the lawn to where they can see their hostess standing, tall and erect and handsome, in spite of her sixty years.

"Your niece?" says Madam O'Connor, staring hard at Monica's pure little face, the girl looking straight back at her with a certain amount of curiosity in her eyes. – "Well, I wish you no greater fortune than your face, my dear," says the old Irishwoman. "It ought to be a rich one, I'm thinking. You're like your mother, too; but your eyes are honester than hers. You must know I knew Kitty Blake very well at one time."

"I have heard my mother speak of you," says Monica.

"Ay – so? Yet I fear there wasn't much love lost between us."

Then she turns a little aside to greet some one else, and Monica lets her eyes roam round the grounds. Suddenly she starts, and says out loud, —

"Ah! there is Olga?"

"You know Mrs. Bohun, then?" says her hostess, attracted by her exclamation and her pretty vivacious expression.

"So very, very well," says Monica. She has flushed warmly, and her eyes are brilliant. "I want to speak to her; I want to go to her, please."

"Bless me! what a shame to waste that lovely blush on a mere woman!" says Madam O'Connor, with a merry laugh. "Here, Fred," turning to a young man standing close to her with a very discontented expression, "I am going to give you a mission after your own heart. You are to take Miss Beresford over there, to where Mrs. Bohun is dealing death to all those boys. – This is Lord Rossmoyne, Miss Beresford: he will see you safely over your rubicon."

"Oh, thank you!" says Monica, gratefully smiling at her.

"Tut, child! thank me when I have done something for you. It is Fred's turn to thank me now," says Madam O'Connor, with a merry twinkle in her gray eyes.

She is a large woman close on sixty, with an eagle eye and a hawk's nose. As Monica leaves her she continues her gossip with the half dozen young men round her, who are all laughing at some joke. Presently she herself is laughing louder than any of them (being partial to boys and their "fun," as she calls it). Bestowing now a smart blow with her fan upon the youngest and probably therefore most flippant of her attendants, she stalks away from them across the lawn, to where two ladies are sitting together.

One is elderly, but most ridiculously dressed in juvenile attire, that might have well suited the daughter sitting beside her. This latter is a tall girl, and large in every way, with curious eyes and a rather harsh voice; she is laughing now at some remark made by a man lounging at the back of her chair, and the laugh is both affected and discordant.

"Have you seen that girl of Kitty Beresford's, Edith?" asks Madam O'Connor of the elder lady.

"That little washed-out-looking girl who came with those two old Miss Blakes?" asks the youthful old woman, with a profoundly juvenile lisp.

"Faith, I don't know about her being washed out," says Madam O'Connor, bluntly. "I think she is the prettiest creature I've seen this many a day."

"You are so impulsive, my dear Theresa!" says her friend, with a simper: "all your geese are swans."

"And other people's swans my geese, I suppose," says Madam, with a glance at the tall girl, which somehow brings the conversation to a full stop.

Meantime, Monica is crossing the soft turf, with the moody man called Rossmoyne beside her. She can see her goal in the distance, and finds comfort in the thought that soon she must be there, as she cannot bring herself to be agreeable to her new acquaintance; and certainly he is feeling no desire just at present to be agreeable to her or to anybody.

As Monica comes nearer to her friend, she gazes anxiously at her, as though to see if time has worked a change in her.

She is quite a little woman about five and twenty, but looking at least four years younger than that. Her eyes are large, dark, and mischievous. Her hair is so fair as to be almost silvery; naturally wavy, it is cut upon the forehead in the prevailing fashion, but not curled. Her mouth is small, mutinous, and full of laughter; her nose distinctly retroussé. Altogether she is distractingly pretty, and, what goes for more nowadays, very peculiar in style, and out of the common.

She is exquisitely dressed in a costume that suggests Paris. She is a harmony in black and white, as Lord Rossmoyne told her an hour ago, when he was not wearing his discontented expression. Seated beside her is a tall pallid woman with a cold face, but very velvety eyes and a smile rare but handsome. Every now and then this smile betrays itself, as her companion says anything that chances to amuse her. She is a Mrs. Herrick, a cousin of Olga Bohun's, and is now on a visit with her at Aghyohillbeg.

There are several men grouped round Mrs. Bohun, all in various standing positions. One man is lying at her feet. He is a tall slight young fellow, of about twenty-three, with a lean face, dark hair, and beautiful teeth. He has, too, beautiful eyes, and a most lovable expression, half boyish, but intensely earnest and very sensitive.

Just now he appears happy and careless, and altogether as if he and the world are friends indeed, and that he is filled with the belief that every one likes him; and, in truth, he is right in so believing, for every one does like him, and a great many are fond of him, and some love him.

He is looking up at Mrs. Bohun, and is talking rapidly, as Monica and Lord Rossmoyne come up behind them.

"What! another bit of scandal?" exclaims Mrs. Bohun, lifting her brows in pleased anticipation. "The air seemed full of it. An hour ago I heard of the dire discomfiture of two of my dearest friends, and just now I listened to a legend of Belgravia that was distinctly fifi and had a good deal to do with a marchioness. It is really quite too much happiness for one day."

"My tale does not emanate from such an aristocratic region as Belgravia," says Ulic Ronayne, the man at her feet: "it is, I blush to say, from the city."

"Ah!" in a regretful tone; "then it will of course be decenter. Don't trouble to expend color on it, as I daresay there isn't a blush in the whole of it. Well," resignedly, "go on."

In the usual quick manner habitual to him, and with the slight but eloquent amount of gesture common to Irish people, Ronayne tells his news, which is received with low laughter by those around.

"I've heard better stories," says Mrs. Bohun, discontentedly; "and it isn't a bit like what Lord Tommy would do. It is more in Rossmoyne's line. I don't think I believe it. And the roundabout way in which you told it reminds one of a three-volume novel: the first leads up to the point, the third winds up the point, the second is the point. I confess I like the second volume best. When I grow funny over my friends I'm all second."

"Then don't be funny about me, please," says Ronayne, lazily.

"Are you my friend?" asks she, glancing at him. Lifting his eyes to hers, he pauses, and then says slowly, the smile dying from his face, —

"Well, perhaps not."

Then he lowers his eyes again, and goes back to his idle occupation of decorating with daisies some of the fantastic loops upon her gown.

At this moment Lord Rossmoyne, coming forward, says, sullenly, "May I hear the story that just now reminded you of me? But first – " He pauses, and glances at Monica. Mrs. Bohun, following his glance, rises hurriedly from her seat, and going up to the girl, embraces her warmly.

"Ah! my pretty Monica! my little saint!" she cries, in her sweet, gay voice, "what happy breeze has blown you hither?"

"I am living here, – at Moyne, – with my aunts," in a happy, breathless way. "Some days ago they described you to me, and I knew it must be you. I was right. And to-day I have found you."

"I'm always found out, as a rule," says Mrs. Bohun, with a light laugh. "That is my standing grievance. You know Hermia, don't you?" indicating the tall, cold-looking woman near her, who so far unbends as to take Monica's hand kindly and bestow upon her one of her handsome smiles. "She has come here to look after me and see that I don't get into a scrape or make myself unhappy."

"Could you be unhappy?" says Rossmoyne, from behind her chair, in so disagreeable a tone that every one looks at him. "Decidedly," thinks Monica to herself, "he has either neuralgia or an execrable temper."

"Miserably so," says the pretty widow, airily. "Though, after all," reflectively, "I believe I have even a greater talent for making others so. That, however, is my misfortune, not my fault. I was 'born so,' like that poor man with the twisted neck."

"Well, this is not one of your miserably unhappy hours, at all events," says Hermia Herrick. "You have been in magnificent spirits ever since you came to Aghyohillbeg."

"You've learned it?" says Olga, staring at her with pretended surprise. "The name, I mean. Well, you are clever. It takes most people four long weeks. Oh, yes, I am blissfully happy here. I ought to be. It would be the grossest ingratitude if I were otherwise, as all the men have been good enough to fall in love with me, and that, of course, is the principal thing."

At this the young man at her feet smiles openly and presses his face unperceived against her gown; but Rossmoyne throws up his head and glances with a coldly displeased expression into the vague distance.

"Have you been here long?" asks Monica, turning to her friend.

"Very long," pettishly. Something – perhaps Rossmoyne – has annoyed the capricious beauty.

"Only a fortnight," says Mrs. Herrick, briefly. "You must know that."

"I don't judge time by days and weeks; it seems long," says Mrs. Bohun, "years, – an eternity almost!"

A sudden gloom appears to have fallen upon the group. Rossmoyne's dark face grows darker still; the smile fades from Ronayne's face, a shadow falls athwart his eyes.

"I think I like the country," says Monica, suddenly. "It is so calm, so quiet, and there are moments when the very beauty of it brings tears to my eyes."

"I love it too," says Ronayne, quickly, addressing her pointedly in a friendly tone, although no introduction has been gone through between them. "I wonder how any one who has once tasted the sweetness of it can ever again long for the heat and turmoil of the town."

"Yes, for a time it is charming, all-sufficing," says Mrs. Bohun, "but for what a little time! Perhaps, – I am not sure, – but perhaps I should like to live for three months of every year in the country. After that, I know I should begin to pine again for the smoke and smuts of my town."

"If you are already wearied, I wonder you stay here," says Lord Rossmoyne, sullenly.

"And I wonder what has happened to-day to your usually so charming temper," returns she, laughingly uplifting her face to his, and letting her eyes rest on him with almost insolent inquiry.

"Desmond says good temper is a mere matter of digestion," says some one at this moment. Monica starts more at the name mentioned than at the exceedingly worn-out words uttered. She glances at the speaker, and sees he is a very ugly young man, with a nice face, and a remarkably dismal expression. He is looking at Rossmoyne. "Sit down, dear boy," he says, sotto voce and very sadly. "There's too much of you; you should never stand. You appear to so much better advantage when doubled in two. It don't sound well, does it? but – "

"But really, when you come to think of it," Mrs. Bohun is saying, feelingly, "there is very little in the country."

"There is at least the fascinating tulip and lily," says the sad man who mentioned Desmond's name. "Don't put yourself beyond the pale of art by saying you had forgotten those æsthetic flowers, – blossoms, I mean. Don't you yearn when you think of them? I do."

"So glad you are awake at last, Owen!" says Mrs. Bohun.

"That silly craze about tulips," says Mrs. Herrick, contemptuously, "I have always treated it with scorn. Why could not the art idiots have chosen some better flower for their lunatic ravings? What can any one see in a tulip?"

"Sometimes earwigs," says the man called Owen.

"Nonsense! I don't believe even earwigs would care for it. Foolish, gaudy thing, uplifting its lanky neck as though to outdo its fellows! There is really nothing in it."

"Like the country," says Owen, meekly, "according to Mrs. Bohun."

"And like Bella Fitzgerald," says that graceless person, with a little grimace.

"My dear Olga," says Mrs. Herrick, glancing quickly to right and left. "Do you never think?"

"As seldom as ever I can. But why be nervous, Hermia? If any one were to compare me with a tulip, I should die of – no, not chagrin —joy, I mean, of course. Monica, what are you saying to Owen?"

"I don't think I know who Owen is," says Monica, with a glance at the gentleman in question, that is half shy, half friendly.

"That argues yourself unknown," says Olga. "He is Master Owen Kelly, of Kelly's Grove, county Antrim, and the bright and shining light of the junior bar. They all swear by him in Dublin, – all, that is except the judges, and they swear at him."

Monica looks at Master Owen Kelly in a faintly puzzled fashion.

"It is all quite true," says that young man, modestly, in a reassuring tone.

"Now tell us what you were saying to each other," says Olga.

"It was nothing," returns Monica. "We were only talking about this Egyptian war. But I don't really," nervously, "understand anything about it."

"You needn't blush for your ignorance on that score," says Mr. Kelly. "You're in the general swim: nobody knows."

"It is the most senseless proceeding altogether," says Hermia Herrick, in her decided way. "Gladstone's wars are toys. He has had three of them now, dear little fellow, to amuse himself with, and he ought to be proud of his victories."

"According to Erasmus, war is the 'malady of princes,'" says Lord Rossmoyne, sententiously.

"Rossmoyne isn't well," says Mr. Kelly, softly. "He is calling the wood-cutter a prince. It reminds one of Hans Andersen's fairy-tale: all hewers of wood and drawers of water were blood-royal then."

"Yet Gladstone has intellect," says Mrs. Herrick, in oh, such a tone: would that the master of Hewarden could have heard her!

"Some!" said Mr. Kelly. "He is indeed 'a thing apart.' I know nothing like him. 'Once, in the flight of ages past, there lived a man.' In ages to come they will say that of our modern immortal William. They will probably add that no real man has ever lived since."

"How silly you can be at times!" says Olga.

"It isn't mine; it's Montgomery's nonsense," says Mr. Kelly, sadly. "Blame him, not me."

"I don't want to blame any one," says Olga, with a skillfully-suppressed yawn; "but, taking your view of the case, I think it will be an awful age when there doesn't live a man."

"Your 'occupation will be o'er,' indeed," says Rossmoyne, with an accentuated bitterness, "when that time comes."

("He must be very much in love with her," thinks Monica, with a touch of inspiration, "he is so excessively rude to her!")

"Lord Rossmoyne," says Mrs. Bohun, turning to him with ineffable sweetness, "will you do something for me?"

The transition from coldness to tender appeal is too much for Rossmoyne: his face brightens.

"You know there is nothing I would not do for you," he says, gravely but eagerly.

"Then," promptly, "please take that ugly frown off your forehead and put it in your pocket; or – no, throw it away altogether; if you kept it near you, you might be tempted to put it on again."

"I did not know I was frowning."

"You were," sweetly. "You are all right again now, and so shall be rewarded. You can't think how unbecoming frowns are, and how much better you look when you are all 'sweetness and light' as now for example. Come," rising, "you shall take me for a nice long walk through these delightful old gardens."

As she moves she sees the daisies still clinging to her gown that Ulic Ronayne has been amusing himself with during the past half-hour. More than this, she sees, too, the imploring gaze of his dark eyes upturned to hers.

"Silly boy!" she says, stooping to shake away the daisies with her hand; but her words have a double meaning. Involuntarily, unseen by all the others – except Monica – his hand closes upon hers.

"Do not go with him," he says, with deep entreaty.

"I must – now."

"Then let me come too?"

"No." Then she raises herself, and says, gayly, "You shall stay and make love to Miss Beresford – Monica, I have desired Mr. Ronayne to stay here and amuse you."

She moves across the lawn with Rossmoyne beside her. Mrs. Herrick and Mr. Kelly are strolling lazily in another direction. Monica and Ulic are alone.

"Is there anything I can take you to see?" asks he, gently.

"No, thank you. I am quite happy here."

Then, noticing the extreme sadness on his beautiful face, she says, slowly, "But you are not, I am afraid."

"I should be, with so fair a companion." He smiles as he says this, but his smile is without mirth, and she does not return it. Suddenly leaning forward, she says to him, very tenderly, —

"You love Olga, do you not?"

She never afterwards thinks of this speech without blushing deeply and wondering why she said it. It was an impulse too strong to be conquered, and it overpowers her. His face changes, and he colors perceptibly; he hesitates too, and regards her inquiringly. Something, perhaps, in her expression reassures him, because presently he says, bravely, —

"Yes, I do. I love her with all my heart and soul; as I never have loved, as I never shall love again. This thought is my happiness: my sorrow lies in the fear that she will never love me. Forgive my saying all this to you: she told me to amuse you," with a faint smile, "and I have woefully neglected her commands."

"You must forgive me," says Monica. "I should not have asked you the question."

"Do not be sorry for that: it has done me good, I think. I am glad I have said it out loud to somebody at last. It is odd though, – isn't it? – I should have made my confession to you, of all people, whom I never saw until ten minutes ago!"

Then Monica remembers that this is the second young man she has found herself on friendly terms with since her arrival at Moyne, without the smallest introduction having been gone through on any side. It all sounds rather dreamy, and certainly very irregular.

"Ah! there is Madam O'Connor beckoning to me," says Ronayne, rising lazily to his feet. "I suppose she wants me for a moment. Will you mind my leaving you for a little, or will you come with me? I shan't be any time."

"I shall stay here," says Monica. "There, go: she seems quite in a hurry. Come back when you can."

He runs across the grass to his hostess; and Monica, leaning back in her chair, gives herself up to thought. Everything is strange, and she is feeling a little lonely, a little distraite, and (but this she will not allow even to herself) distinctly disappointed. She is trying very hard to prevent her mind from dwelling upon a certain face that should be naught to her, when she suddenly becomes conscious of the fact that some one has come to a standstill close beside her chair. She turns.