Mrs. Geoffrey Part 22

"That is not correct," says Mona. "We have a baronet here, Sir Owen O'Connor, and he is thought a great deal of. I know all about it. Even Lady Mary would have married him if he had asked her, though his hair is the color of an orange. Mr. Rodney,"--laying a dreadful stress upon the prefix to his name,--"go back to England and"--tragically--"forget me?"

"I shall do nothing of the kind," says Mr. Rodney, indignantly. "And if you address me in that way again I shall cut my throat."

"Much better do that"--gloomily--"than marry me Nothing comes of unequal marriages but worry, and despair, and misery, and _death_," says Mona, in a fearful tone, emphasizing each prophetic word with a dismal nod.

"You've been reading novels," says Rodney, contemptuously.

"No, I haven't," says Mona, indignantly.

"Then you are out of your mind," says Rodney.

"No, I am not. Anything but that; and to be rude"--slowly--"answers no purpose. But I have some common sense, I hope."

"I hate women with common sense. In plainer language it means no heart."

"Now you speak sensibly. The sooner you begin to hate me the better."

"A nice time to offer such advice as that," says Rodney, moodily. "But I shan't take it. Mona,"--seizing her hands and speaking more in pa.s.sionate excitement than even in love,--"say at once you will keep your word and marry me."

"Nothing on earth shall bring me to say that," says Mona, solemnly.

"Nothing!"

"Then don't," says Rodney, furiously, and flinging her hands from him, he turns and strides savagely down the hill, and is lost to sight round the corner.

But, though "lost to sight," to memory he is most unpleasantly "dear."

Standing alone in the middle of the deserted field, Mona pulls to pieces, in a jerky, fretful fas.h.i.+on, a blade of gra.s.s she has been idly holding during the late warm discussion. She is honestly very much frightened at what she has done, but obstinately declines to acknowledge it even to her own heart. In a foolish but natural manner she tries to deceive herself into the belief that what has happened has been much to her own advantage, and it will be a strict wisdom to rejoice over it.

"Dear me," she says, throwing up her dainty head, and flinging, with a petulant gesture, the unoffending gra.s.s far from her, "what an escape I have had! How his mother would have hated me! Surely I should count it lucky that I discovered all about her in time. Because really it doesn't so very much matter; I dare say I shall manage to be quite perfectly happy here again, after a little bit, just as I have been all my life--before he came. And when he is _gone_"--she pauses, chokes back with stern determination a very heavy sigh, and then goes on hastily and with suspicious bitterness, "What a temper he has! Horrid! The way he flung away my hand, as if he detested me, and flounced down that hill, as if he hoped never to set eyes on me again! With no 'good-by,' or 'by your leave,' or 'with your leave,' or a word of farewell, or a backward glance, or _anything_! I do hope he has taken me at my word, and that he will go straight back, without seeing me again, to his own odious country."

She tells herself this lie without a blush, perhaps because she is so pale at the bare thought that her eyes may never again be gladdened by his presence, that the blood refuses to rise.

A bell tinkles softly in the distance. The early dusk is creeping up from behind the distant hills, that are purple with the soft and glowing heather. The roar of the rus.h.i.+ng waves comes from the bay that lies behind those encircling hills, and falls like sound of saddest music on her ear. Now comes

Still evening on, and twilight gray Has in her sober livery all things clad.

And Mona, rousing herself from her unsatisfactory reverie, draws her breath quickly and then moves homeward.

But first she turns and casts a last lingering glance upon the sloping hill down which her sweetheart, filled with angry thoughts, had gone.

And as she so stands, with her hand to her forehead, after a little while a slow smile of conscious power comes to her lips and tarries round them, as though fond of its resting-place.

Her lips part. An expression that is half gladness, half amus.e.m.e.nt, brightens her eyes.

"I wonder," she says to herself, softly, "whether he will be with me at the usual hour to-morrow, or,--a little earlier!"

Then she gathers up her gown and runs swiftly back to the farm.

CHAPTER XI.

HOW GEOFFREY RETURNS TO HIS ALLEGIANCE--HOW HE DISCOVERS HIS DIVINITY DEEP IN THE PERFORMANCE OF SOME MYSTIC RITES WITHIN THE COOL PRECINCTS OF HER TEMPLE--AND HOW HE SEEKS TO REDUCE HER TO REASON FROM THE TOP OF AN INVERTED CHURN.

To-day--that "liberal worldling," that "gay philosopher"--is here; and last night belongs to us only in so far as it deserves a place in our memory or has forced itself there in spite of our hatred and repugnance.

To Rodney, last night is one ever to be remembered as being a period almost without end, and as a perfect specimen of how seven hours can be made to feel like twenty-one.

Thus at odd moments time can treble itself; but with the blessed daylight come comfort and renewed hope, and Geoffrey, greeting with rapture the happy morn, that,

"Waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand Unbars the gates of light,"

tells himself that all may yet be right betwixt him and his love.

His love at this moment--which is closing upon noon--is standing in her cool dairy upon business thoughts intent yet with a certain look of expectation and anxiety upon he face,--a _listening_ look may best express it.

To-morrow will be market-day in Bantry, to which the week's b.u.t.ter must go; and now the churning is over, and the result of it lies cold and rich and fresh beneath Mona's eyes. She herself is busily engaged printing little pats off a large roll of b.u.t.ter that rests on the slab before her; her sleeves are carefully tucked up, as on that first day when Geoffrey saw her; and in defiance of her own heart--which knows itself to be sad--she is lilting some little foolish lay, bright and shallow as the October suns.h.i.+ne that floods the room, lying in small silken patches on the walls and floor.

In the distance a woman is bending over a keeler making up a huge ma.s.s of b.u.t.ter into rolls, nicely squared and smoothed, to make them look their best and handsomest to-morrow.

"An' a nate color too," says this woman, who is bare-footed, beneath her breath, regarding with admiration the yellow tint of the object on which she is engaged. Two pullets, feathered like a partridge, are creeping stealthily into the dairy, their heads turned knowingly on one side, their steps slow and cautious; not even the faintest chirrup escapes them, lest it be the cause of their instant dismissal. There is no sound anywhere but the soft music that falls from Mona's lips.

Suddenly a bell rings in the distance. This is the signal for the men to cease from work and go to their dinners. It must be two o'clock.

Two o'clock! The song dies away, and Mona's brow contracts. So late!--the day is slipping from her, and as yet no word, no sign.

The bell stops, and a loud knock at the hall-door takes its place. Was ever sweeter sound heard anywhere? Mona draws her breath quickly, and then as though ashamed of herself goes on stoically with her task. Yet for all her stoicism her color comes and goes, and now she is pale, and now "celestial, rosy red, love's proper hue," and now a little smile comes up and irradiates her face.

So he has come back to her. There is triumph in this thought and some natural vanity, but above and beyond all else a great relief that lifts from her the deadly fear that all night has been consuming her and has robbed her of her rest. Now anxiety is at an end, and joy reigns, born of the knowledge that by his speedy surrender he has proved himself her own indeed, and she herself indispensable to his content.

"'Tis the English gintleman, miss,--Misther Rodney. He wants to see ye,"

says the fair Bridget, putting her head in at the doorway, and speaking in a hushed and subdued tone.

"Very well: show him in here," says Mona, very distinctly, going on with the printing of her b.u.t.ter with a courage that deserves credit. There is acrimony in her tone, but laughter in her eyes. While acknowledging a faint soreness at her heart she is still amused at his prompt, and therefore flattering, subjection.

Rodney, standing on the threshold at the end of the small hall, can hear distinctly all that pa.s.ses.

"Here, miss,--in the dairy? Law, Miss Mona! don't"

"Why?" demands her mistress, somewhat haughtily. "I suppose even the English gentleman, as you call him, can see b.u.t.ter with dying! Show him in at once."

"But in that ap.r.o.n, miss, and wid yer arms bare-like, an' widout yer purty blue bow; law, Miss Mona, have sinse, an' don't ye now."

"Show Mr. Rodney in here, Bridget," says Mona unflinchingly, not looking at the distressed maid, or indeed at anything but the un.o.bservant b.u.t.ter. And Bridget, with a sigh that strongly resembles the snort of a war-horse, ushers Mr. Rodney into the dairy.

"You?" says Mona, with extreme _hauteur_ and an unpleasant amount of well-feigned astonishment. She does not deign to go to meet him, or even turn her head altogether in his direction, but just throws a swift and studiously unfriendly glance at him from under her long lashes.

"Yes" replies he, slowly as though regretful that he cannot deny his own ident.i.ty.