the momentous friday comes at last, and about noon mona and geoffrey start for the towers. they are not, perhaps, in the exuberant spirits that should be theirs, considering they are going to spend their christmas in the bosom of their family,—at all events, of geoffrey's family which naturally for the future she must acknowledge as hers. they are indeed not only silent, but desponding, and as they get out of the train at greatham and enter the carriage sent by sir nicholas to meet them their hearts sink nearly into their boots, and for several minutes no words pass between them.
to geoffrey perhaps the coming ordeal bears a deeper shade; as mona hardly understands all that awaits her. that lady rodney is a little displeased at her son's marriage she can readily believe, but that she has made up her mind beforehand to dislike her, and intends waging with her war to the knife, is more than has ever entered into her gentle mind.
"is it a long drive, geoff?" she asks, presently, in a trembling tone, slipping her hand into his in the old fashion. "about six miles. i say, darling, keep up your spirits; if we don't like it, we can leave, you know. but"—alluding to her subdued voice—"don't be imagining evil."
"i don't think i am," says mona; "but the thought of meeting people for the first time makes me feel nervous. is your mother tall, geoffrey?"
"very."
"and severe-looking? you said she was like you."
"well, so she is; and yet i suppose our expressions are dissimilar. look here," says geoffrey, suddenly, as though compelled at the last moment to give her a hint of what is coming. "i want to tell you about her,—my mother i mean: she is all right, you know, in every way, and very charming in general, but just at first one might imagine her a little difficult!"
"what's that?" asked mona. "don't speak of your mother as if she were a chromatic scale."
"i mean she seems a trifle cold, unfriendly, and—er—that," says geoffrey. "perhaps it would be a wise thing for you to make up your mind what you will say to her on first meeting her. she will come up to you, you know, and give you her hand like this," taking hers, "and——"
"yes, i know," said mona, eagerly interrupting him. "and then she will put her arms round me, and kiss me just like this," suiting the action to the word.
"like that? not a bit of it," says geoffrey, who had given her two kisses for her one: "you mustn't expect it. she isn't in the least like that. she will meet you probably as though she saw you yesterday, and say, 'how d'ye do? i'm afraid you have had a very long and cold drive.' and then you will say——"
a pause.
"yes, i shall say——" anxiously.
"you—will—say——" here he breaks down ignominiously, and confesses by his inability to proceed that he doesn't in the least know what it is she can say.
"i know," says mona, brightening, and putting on an air so different from her own usual unaffected one as to strike her listener with awe. "i shall say, 'oh! thanks, quite too awfully much, don't you know? but geoffrey and i didn't find it a bit long, and we were as warm as wool all the time.'"
at this appalling speech geoffrey's calculations fall through, and he gives himself up to undisguised mirth.
"if you say all that," he says, "there will be wigs on the green: that's irish, isn't it? or something like it, and very well applied too. the first part of your speech sounded like toole or brough, i'm not sure which."
"well, it was in a theatre i heard it," confesses mona, meekly: "it was a great lord who said it on the stage, so i thought it would be all right."
"great lords are not necessarily faultlessly correct, either on or off the stage," says geoffrey. "but, just for choice, i prefer them off it. no, that will not do at all. when my mother addresses you, you are to answer her back again in tones even colder than her own, and say——"
"but, geoffrey, why should i be cold to your mother? sure you wouldn't have me be uncivil to her, of all people?"
"not uncivil, but cool. you will say to her, 'it was rather better than i anticipated, thank you.' and then, if you can manage to look bored, it will be quite correct, so far, and you may tell yourself you have scored one."
"i may say that horrid speech, but i certainly can't pretend i was bored during our drive, because i am not," says mona.
"i know that. if i was not utterly sure of it i should instantly commit suicide by precipitating myself under the carriage-wheels," says geoffrey. "still—'let us dissemble.' now say what i told you."
so mrs. rodney says, "it was rather better than i anticipated, thank you," in a tone so icy that his is warm beside it.
"but suppose she doesn't say a word about the drive?" says mona, thoughtfully. "how will it be then?"
"she is safe to say something about it, and that will do for anything," says rodney, out of the foolishness of his heart.
and now the horses draw up before a brilliantly-lighted hall, the doors of which are thrown wide as though in hospitable expectation of their coming.
geoffrey, leading his wife into the hall, pauses beneath a central swinging lamp, to examine her critically. the footman who is in attendance on them has gone on before to announce their coming: they are therefore for the moment alone.
mona is looking lovely, a little pale perhaps from some natural agitation, but her pallor only adds to the lustre of her great blue eyes and lends an additional sweetness to the ripeness of her lips. her hair is a little loose, but eminently becoming, and altogether she looks as like an exquisite painting as one can conceive.
"take off your hat," says geoffrey, in a tone that gladdens her heart, so full it is of love and admiration; and, having removed her hat, she follows him though halls and one or two anterooms until they reach the library, into which the man ushers them.
it is a very pretty room, filled with a subdued light, and with a blazing fire at one end. all bespeaks warmth, and home, and comfort, but to mona in her present state it is desolation itself. the three occupants of the room rise as she enters, and mona's heart dies within her as a very tall statuesque woman, drawing herself up languidly from a lounging-chair, comes leisurely up to her. there is no welcoming haste in her movements, no gracious smile, for which her guest is thirsting, upon her thin lips.
she is dressed in black velvet, and has a cap of richest old lace upon her head. to the quick sensibilities of the irish girl it becomes known without a word that she is not to look for love from this stately woman, with her keen scrutinizing glance and cold unsmiling lips.
a choking sensation, rising from her heart, almost stops mona's breath; her mouth feels parched and dry; her eyes widen. a sudden fear oppresses her. how is it going to be in all the future? is geoffrey's—her own husband's—mother to be her enemy?
lady rodney holds out her hand, and mona lays hers within it.
"so glad you have come," says lady rodney, in a tone that belies her words, and in a sweet silvery voice that chills the heart of her listener. "we hardly thought we should see you so soon, the trains here are so unpunctual. i hope the carriage was in time?"
she waits apparently for an answer, at which mona grows desperate. for in reality she has heard not one word of the labored speech made to her, and is too frightened to think of anything to say except the unfortunate lesson learned in the carriage and repeated secretly so often since. she looks round helplessly for geoffrey; but he is laughing with his brother, captain rodney, whom he has not seen since his return from india, and so mona, cast upon her own resources, says,—
"it was rather better than i anticipated, thank you," not in the haughty tone adopted by her half an hour ago, but, in an unnerved and frightened whisper.
at this remarkable answer to a very ordinary and polite question, lady rodney stares at mona for a moment, and then turns abruptly away to greet geoffrey. whereupon captain rodney, coming forward, tells mona he is glad to see her, kindly but carelessly; and then a young man, who has been standing up to this silently upon the hearthrug, advances, and takes mona's hand in a warm clasp, and looks down upon her with very friendly eyes.
at his touch, at his glance, the first sense of comfort mona has felt since her entry into the room falls upon her. this man, at least, is surely of the same kith and kin as geoffrey, and to him her heart opens gladly, gratefully.
he has heard the remarkable speech made to his mother, and has drawn his own conclusions therefrom. "geoffrey has been coaching the poor little soul, and putting absurd words into her mouth, with—as is usual in all such cases—a very brilliant result." so he tells himself, and is, as we know, close to the truth.
he tells mona she is very welcome, and, still holding her hand, draws her over to the fire, and moves a big arm-chair in front of it, in which he ensconces her, bidding her warm herself, and make herself (as he says with a kindly smile that has still kinder meaning in it) "quite at home."
then he stoops and unfastens her sealskin jacket, and takes it off her, and in fact pays her all the little attentions that lie in his power.
"you are sir nicholas?" questions she at last, gaining courage to speak, and raising her eyes to his full of entreaty, and just a touch of that pathos that seems of right to belong to the eyes of all irishwomen.
"yes," returns he with a smile. "i am nicholas." he ignores the formal title. "geoffrey, i expect, spoke to you of me as 'old nick;' he has never called me anything else since we were boys."
"he has often called you that; but,"—shyly,—"now that i have seen you, i don't think the name suits you a bit."
sir nicholas is quite pleased. there is a sort of unconscious flattery in the gravity of her tone and expression that amuses almost as much as it pleases him. what a funny child she is! and how unspeakably lovely! will doatie like her?
but there is yet another introduction to be gone through. from the doorway violet mansergh comes up to geoffrey clad in some soft pale shimmering stuff, and holds out to him her hand.
"what a time you have been away!" she says, with a pretty, slow smile, that has not a particle of embarrassment or consciousness in it, though she is quite aware that jack rodney is watching her closely. perhaps, indeed, she is secretly amused at his severe scrutiny.
"you will introduce me to your wife?" she asks, after a few minutes, in her even, trainante voice, and is then taken up to the big arm-chair before the fire, and is made known to mona.
"dinner will be ready in a few minutes: of course we shall excuse your dressing to-night," says lady rodney, addressing her son far more than mona, though the words presumably are meant for her. whereupon mona, rising from her chair with a sigh of relief, follows geoffrey out of the room and upstairs.
"well?" says sir nicholas, as a deadly silence continues for some time after their departure, "what do you think of her?"
"she is painfully deficient; positively without brains," says lady rodney, with conviction. "what was the answer she made me when i asked about the carriage? something utterly outside the mark."
"she is not brainless; she was only frightened. it certainly was an ordeal coming to a house for the first time to be, in effect, stared at. and she is very young."
"and perhaps unused to society," puts in violet, mildly. as she speaks she picks up a tiny feather that has clung to her gown, and lightly blows it away from her into the air.
"she looked awfully cut up, poor little thing," says jack, kindly. "you were the only one she opened her mind to, nick what did she say? did she betray the ravings of a lunatic or the inanities of a fool?"
"neither."
"then, no doubt, she heaped upon you priceless gems of irish wit in her mother-tongue?"
"she said very little; but she looks good and true. after all, geoffrey might have done worse."
"worse!" repeats his mother, in a withering tone. in this mood she is not nice, and a very little of her suffices.
"she is decidedly good to look at, at all events," says nicholas, shifting ground. "don't you think so, violet?"
"i think she is the loveliest woman i ever saw," returns miss mansergh, quietly, without enthusiasm, but with decision. if cold, she is just, and above the pettiness of disliking a woman because she may be counted more worthy of admiration than herself.
"i am glad you are all pleased," says lady rodney, in a peculiar tone; and then the gong sounds, and they all rise, as geoffrey and mona once more make their appearance. sir nicholas gives his arm to mona, and so begins her first evening at the towers.
