lights are blazing, fiddles are sounding; all the world is abroad to-night. even still, though the ball at the towers has been opened long since by mona and the duke of lauderdale, the flickering light of carriage-lamps is making the roads bright, by casting tiny rays upon the frosted ground.
the fourth dance has come to an end; cards are full; every one is settling down to work in earnest; already the first touch of satisfaction or of carefully-suppressed disappointment is making itself felt.
mona, who has again been dancing with the duke, stopping near where the duchess is sitting, the latter beckons her to her side by a slight wave of her fan. to the duchess "a thing of beauty is a joy forever," and to gaze on mona's lovely face and admire her tranquil but brilliant smile gives her a strange pleasure.
"come and sit by me. you can spare me a few minutes," she says, drawing her ample skirts to one side. mona, taking her hand from lauderdale's arm, drops into the proffered seat beside his mother, much to that young man's chagrin, who, having inherited the material hankering after that "delightful prejudice," as theocritus terms beauty, is decidedly epris with mrs. geoffrey, and takes it badly being done out of his tete-a-tete with her.
"mrs. rodney would perhaps prefer to dance, mother," he says, with some irritation.
"mrs. rodney will not mind wasting a quarter of an hour on an old woman," says the duchess, equably.
"i am not so sure of that," says mona, with admirable tact and an exquisite smile, "but i shouldn't mind spending an hour with you."
lauderdale makes a little face, and tells himself secretly "all women are liars," but the duchess is very pleased, and bends her friendliest glance upon the pretty creature at her side, who possesses that greatest of all charms, inability to notice the ravages of time.
perhaps another reason for mona's having found such favor in the eyes of "the biggest woman in our shire, sir," lies in the fact that she is in many ways so totally unlike all the other young women with whom the duchess is in the habit of associating. she is naive to an extraordinary degree, and says and does things that might appear outre in others, but are so much a part of mona that it neither startles nor offends one when she gives way to them.
just now, for example, a pause occurring in the conversation, mona, fastening her eyes upon her grace's neck, says, with genuine admiration,—
"what a lovely necklace you are wearing!"
to make personal remarks, we all know, is essentially vulgar, is indeed a breach of the commonest show of good breeding; yet somehow mrs. geoffrey's tone does not touch on vulgarity, does not even belong to the outermost skirts of ill-breeding. she has an inborn gentleness of her own, that carries her safely over all social difficulties.
the duchess is amused.
"it is pretty, i think," she says. "the duke," with a grave look, "gave it to me just two years after my son was born."
"did he?" says mona. "geoffrey gave me these pearls," pointing to a pretty string round her own white neck, "a month after we were married. it seems quite a long time ago now," with a sigh and a little smile. "but your opals are perfect. just like the moonlight. by the by," as if it has suddenly occurred to her, "did you ever see the lake by moonlight? i mean from the mullioned window in the north gallery?"
"the lake here? no," says the duchess.
"haven't you?" in surprise. "why it is the most enchanting thing in the world. oh, you must see it: you will be delighted with it. come with me, and i will show it to you," says mona, eagerly, rising from her seat in her impulsive fashion.
she is plainly very much in earnest, and has fixed her large expressive eyes—lovely as loving—with calm expectancy upon the duchess. she has altogether forgotten that she is a duchess (perhaps, indeed, has never quite grasped the fact), and that she is an imposing and portly person not accustomed to exercise of any description.
for a moment her grace hesitates, then is lost. it is to her a new sensation to be taken about by a young woman to see things. up to this, it has been she who has taken the young women about to see things. but mona is so openly and genuinely anxious to bestow a favor upon her to do her, in fact, a good turn, that she is subdued, sweetened, nay, almost flattered, by this artless desire to please her for "love's sake" alone.
she too rises, lays her hand on mona's arm, and walks through the long room, and past the county generally, to "see the lake by moonlight." yet it is not for the sake of gazing upon almost unrivalled scenery she goes, but to please this irish girl, whom so very few can resist.
"where has mona taken the duchess?" asks lady rodney of sir nicholas half an hour later.
"she took her to see the lake. mona, you know, raves about it, when the moon lights it up.
"she is very absurd, and more troublesome and unpleasant than anybody i ever had in my house. of course the duchess did not want to see the water. she was talking to old lord dering about the drainage question, and seemed quite happy, when that girl interfered. common courtesy compelled her, i suppose, to say yes to—mona's—proposition."
"i hardly think the duchess is the sort of woman to say yes when she meant no," says nicholas, with a half smile. "she went because it so pleased her, and for no other reason. i begin to think, indeed, that lilian chetwoode is rather out of it, and that mona is the first favorite at present. she has evidently taken the duchess by storm."
"why not say the duke too?" says his mother, with a cold glance, to whom praise of mona is anything but "cakes and ale." "her flirtation with him is very apparent. it is disgraceful. every one is noticing and talking about it. geoffrey alone seems determined to see nothing! like all under-bred people, she cannot know satisfaction unless perched upon the topmost rung of the ladder."
"you are slightly nonsensical when on the subject of mona," says sir nicholas, with a shrug. "intrigue and she could not exist in the same atmosphere. she is to lauderdale what she is to everyone else,—gay, bright, and utterly wanting in self-conceit. i cannot understand how it is that you alone refuse to acknowledge her charms. to me she is like a little soft sunbeam floating here and there and falling into the hearts of those around her, carrying light, and joy, and laughter, and merry music with her as she goes."
"you speak like a lover," says lady rodney, with an artificial laugh. "do you repeat all this to dorothy? she must find it very interesting."
"dorothy and i are quite agreed about mona," replies he, calmly. "she likes her as much as i do. as to what you say about her encouraging lauderdale's attentions, it is absurd. no such evil thought could enter her head."
at this instant a soft ringing laugh, that once heard is not easily forgotten, comes from an inner room, that is carefully curtained and delicately lighted, and smites upon their ears.
it is mona's laugh. raising their eyes, both mother and son turn their heads hastily (and quite involuntarily) and gaze upon the scene beyond. they are so situated that they can see into the curtained chamber and mark the picture it contains. the duke is bending over mona in a manner that might perhaps be termed by an outsider slightly empresse, and mona is looking up at him, and both are laughing gayly,—mona with all the freshness of unchecked youth, the duke with such a thorough and wholesome sense of enjoyment as he has not known for years.
then mona rises, and they both come to the entrance of the small room, and stand where lady rodney can overhear what they are saying.
"oh! so you can ride, then," says lauderdale, alluding probably to the cause of his late merriment.
"sure of course," says mona. "why, i used to ride the colts barebacked at home."
lady rodney shudders.
"sometimes i long again for a mad, wild gallop straight across country, where nobody can see me,—such as i used to have," goes on mona, half regretfully.
"and who allowed you to risk your life like that?" asks the duke, with simple amazement. his sister before she married was not permitted to cross the threshold without a guardian at her side. this girl is a revelation.
"no one," says mona. "i had no need to ask permission for anything. i was free to do what i wished."
she looks up at him again with some fire in her eyes and a flush upon her cheeks. perhaps some of the natural lawlessness of her kindred is making her blood warm. so standing, however, she is the very embodiment of youth and love and sweetness, and so the duke admits.
"have you any sisters?" he asks, vaguely.
"no. nor brothers. only myself.
"'i am all the daughters of my father's house,
and all the brothers too!'"
she nods her head gayly as she says this, being pleased at her apt quotation from the one book she has studied very closely.
the duke loses his head a little.
"do you know," he says, slowly, staring at her the while, "you are the most beautiful woman i ever saw?"
"ah! so geoffrey says," returns she, with a perfectly unembarrassed and pleased little laugh, while a great gleam of tender love comes into her eyes as she makes mention of her husband's name. "but i really am not you know."
this answer, being so full of thorough unconsciousness and childish naivete, has the effect of reducing the duke to common sense once more, and of making him very properly ashamed of himself. he feels, however, rather out of it for a minute or two, which feeling renders him silent and somewhat distrait. so mona, flung upon her own resources, looks round the room seeking for inspiration, and presently finds it.
"what a disagreeable-looking man that is over there!" she says: "the man with the shaggy beard, i mean, and the long hair."
she doesn't want in the very least to know who he is, but thinks it her duty to say something, as the silence being protracted grows embarrassing.
"the man with the mane? that is griffith blount. the most objectionable person any one could meet, but tolerated because his tongue is so awful. do you know colonel graves? no! well, he has a wife calculated to terrify the bravest man into submission, and last year when he was going abroad blount met him, and asked him before a roomful 'if he was going for pleasure, or if he was going to take his wife with him.' neat, wasn't it? but i don't remember hearing that graves liked it."
"it was very unkind," says mona; "and he has a hateful face."
"he has," says the duke. "but he has his reward, you know: nobody likes him. by the by, what horrid bad times they are having in your land!—ricks of hay burning nightly, cattle killed, everybody boycotted, and small children speared!"
"oh, no, not that," says mona. "poor ireland! every one either laughs at her or hates her. though i like my adopted country, still i shall always feel for old erin what i could never feel for another land."
"and quite right too," says lauderdale. "you remember what scott says:
"'breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
who never to himself hath said,
this is my own, my native land!'"
"oh, yes, lots of 'em," says mr. darling, who has come suddenly up beside them: "for instance, i don't believe i ever said it in all my life, either to myself or to any one else. are you engaged, mrs. geoffrey? and if not, may i have this dance?"
"with pleasure," says mona.
paul rodney, true to his word, has put in an appearance, much to the amazement of many in the room. almost as mona's dance with nolly is at an end, he makes his way to her, and asks her to give him the next. unfortunately, she is not engaged for it, and, being unversed in polite evasions, she says yes, quietly, and is soon floating round the room with him.
after one turn she stops abruptly, near an entrance.
"tired?" says rodney, fixing his black, gloomy eyes upon her.
"a little," says mona. it is perhaps the nearest approach to a falsehood she has ever made.
"perhaps you would rather rest for a while. do you know this is the first time i have ever been inside the towers?" he says this as one might who is desirous of making conversation, yet there is a covert meaning in his tone. mona is silent. to her it seems a base thing that he should have accepted the invitation at all.
"i have heard the library is a room well worth seeing," goes on the australian, seeing she will not speak.
"yes; every one admires it. it is very old. you know one part of the towers is older than all the rest."
"i have heard so. i should like to see the library," says paul, looking at her expectantly.
"you can see it now if you wish," says mona, quickly, the thought that she may be able to entertain him in some fashion that will not require conversation is dear to her. she therefore takes his arm, and leads him out of the ballroom, and across the halls into the library, which is brilliantly lighted, but just at this moment empty.
i forget if i described it before, but it is a room quite perfect in every respect, a beautiful room, oak-panelled from floor to ceiling, with this peculiarity about it, that whereas three of the walls have their panels quite long, without a break from top to bottom, the fourth—that is, the one in which the fireplace has been inserted—has the panels of a smaller size, cut up into pieces from about one foot broad to two feet long.
the australian seems particularly struck with this fact. he stares in a thoughtful fashion at the wall with the small panels, seeming blind to the other beauties of the room.
"yes, it is strange why that wall should be different from the others," mona says, rather glad that he appears interested in something besides herself. "but it is altogether quite a nice old room, is it not?"
"it is," replies he, absently. then, below his breath, "and well worth fighting for."
but mona does not hear this last addition; she is moving a chair a little to one side, and the faint noise it makes drowns the sound of his voice. this perhaps is as well.
she turns up one of the lamps, whilst rodney still continues his contemplation of the wall before him. conversation languishes, then dies. mona, raising her hand to her lips, suppresses valiantly a yawn.
"i hope you are enjoying yourself," she says, presently, hardly knowing what else to say.
"enjoying myself?—no, i never do that," says rodney, with unexpected frankness.
"you can hardly mean that?" says mona, with some surprise.
"i do. just now," looking at her, "i am perhaps as near enjoyment as i can be. but i have not danced before to-night. nor should i have danced at all had you been engaged. i have forgotten what it is to be light-hearted."
"but surely there must be moments when——"
"i never have such moments," interrupts he moodily.
"dear me! what a terribly unpleasant young man!" thinks mona, at her wits' end to know what to say next. tapping her fingers in a perplexed fashion on the table nearest her, she wonders when he will cease his exhaustive survey of the walls and give her an opportunity of leaving the room.
"but this is very sad for you, isn't it?" she says, feeling herself in duty bound to say something.
"i dare say it is; but the fact remains. i don't know what is the matter with me. it is a barren feeling,—a longing, it may be, for something i can never obtain."
"all that is morbid," says mona: "you should try to conquer it. it is not healthy."
"you speak like a book," says rodney, with an unlovely laugh; "but advice seldom cures. i only know that i have learned what stagnation means. i may alter in time, of course, but just at present i feel that
'my night has no eve,
and my day has no morning.'
at home—in sydney, i mean—the life was different. it was free, unfettered, and in a degree lawless. it suited me better."
"then why don't you go back?" suggests mona, simply.
"because i have work to do here," retorts he, grimly. "yet ever since i first set foot on this soil, contentment has gone from me. abroad a man lives, here he exists. there, he carries his life in his hand, and trusts to his revolver rather than to the most learned of counsels, but here all is on another footing."
"it is to be regretted you cannot like england, as you have made up your mind to live in it; and yet i think——" she pauses.
"yes—you think; go on," says rodney, gazing at her attentively.
"well, then, i think it is only just you should be unhappy," says mona, with some vehemence. "those who seek to scatter misery broadcast among their fellows should learn to taste of it themselves."
"why do you accuse me of such a desire?" asks he, paling beneath her indignation, and losing courage because of the unshed tears that are gleaming in her eyes.
"when you gain your point and find yourself master here, you will know you have made not only one, but many people miserable."
"you seem to take my success in this case as a certainty," he says, with a frown. "i may fail."
"oh, that i could believe so!" says mona, forgetful of manners, courtesy, everything, but the desire to see those she loves restored to peace.
"you are candor itself," returns he, with a short laugh, shrugging his shoulders. "of course i am bound to hope your wish may be fulfilled. and yet i doubt it. i am nearer my object to-night than i have ever been before; and," with a sardonic smile, "yours has been the hand to help me forward."
mona starts, and regards him fixedly in a puzzled, uncertain manner. what he can possibly mean is unknown to her; but yet she is aware of some inward feeling, some instinct such as animals possess, that warns her to beware of him. she shrinks from him, and in doing so a slight fold of her dress catches in the handle of a writing-table, and detains her.
paul, dropping on his knees before her, releases her gown; the fold is in his grasp, and still holding it he looks up at her, his face pale and almost haggard.
"if i were to resign all hope of gaining the towers, if i were to consent to leave your people still in possession," he says, passionately, but in a low tone, "should i earn one tender thought in your heart? speak, mona! speak!"
i am sure at even this supreme moment it never enters mona's brain that the man is actually making love to her. a deep pity for him fills her mind. he is unhappy, justly so, no doubt, but yet unhappy. a sure passport to her heart.
"i do not think unkindly of you," she says, gently, but coldly. "and do as your conscience dictates, and you will gain not only my respect, but that of all men."
"bah!" he says, impatiently, rising from the ground and turning away. her answer has frozen him again, has dried up the momentary desire for her approbation above all others that only a minute ago had agitated his breast.
at this moment geoffrey comes into the room and up to mona. he takes no notice whatever of her companion, "mona, will you come and sing us something?" he says, as naturally as though the room is empty. "nolly has been telling the duchess about your voice, and she wants to hear you. anything simple, darling,"—seeing she looks a little distressed at the idea: "you sing that sort of thing best."
"i hardly think our dance is ended yet, mrs. rodney," says the australian, defiantly, coming leisurely forward, his eyes bent somewhat insolently upon geoffrey.
"you will come, mona, to oblige the duchess," says geoffrey, in exactly as even a tone as if the other had never spoken. not that he cares in the very least about the duchess; but he is determined to conquer here, and is also desirous that all the world should appreciate and admire the woman he loves.
"i will come, of course," says mona, nervously, "but i am afraid she will be disappointed. you will excuse me, mr. rodney, i am sure," turning graciously to paul, who is standing with folded arms in the background.
"yes, i excuse you," he says, with a curious stress upon the pronoun, and a rather strained smile. the room is filling with other people, the last dance having plainly come to an end. geoffrey, taking mona's arm, leads her into the hall.
"dance no more to-night with that fellow," he says quickly, as they get outside.
"no?" then, "not if you dislike it of course. but nicholas made a point of my being nice to him. i did not know you would object to my dancing with him."
"well, you know it now. i do object," says geoffrey, in a tone he has never used to her before. not that it is unkind or rude, but cold and unlover-like.
"yes, i know it now!" returns she, softly, yet with the gentle dignity that always belongs to her. her lips quiver, but she draws herself up to her fullest height, and, throwing up her head, walks with a gait that is almost stately into the presence of the duchess.
"you wish me to sing to you," she says, gently, yet so unsmilingly that the duchess wonders what has come to the child. "it will give me pleasure if i can give you pleasure, but my voice is not worth thinking about."
"nevertheless, let me hear it," says the duchess. "i cannot forget that your face is musical."
mona, sitting down to the piano, plays a few chords in a slow, plaintive fashion, and then begins. paul rodney has come to the doorway, and is standing there gazing at her, though she knows it not. the ballroom is far distant, so far that the sound of the band does not break upon the silence of the room in which they are assembled. a hush falls upon the listeners as mona's fresh, pathetic, tender voice rises into the air.
it is an old song she chooses, and simple as old, and sweet as simple. i almost forget the words now, but i know it runs in this wise:
oh, hame, hame—hame fain wad i be,
hame, hame to my ain countrie,
and so on.
it touches the hearts of all who hear it as she sings it and brings tears to the eyes of the duchess. so used the little fragile daughter to sing who is now chanting in heaven!
there is no vehement applause as mona takes her fingers from the keys, but every one says, "thank you," in a low tone. geoffrey, going up to her, leans over her chair and whispers, with some agitation,—
"you did not mean it, mona, did you? you are content here with me?—you have no regret?"
at which mona turns round to him a face very pale, but full of such love as should rejoice the heart of any man, and says, tremulously,—
"darling, do you need an answer?"
"then why did you choose that song?"
"i hardly know."
"i was hateful to you just now, and most unjust."
"were you? i have forgotten it," replies she, smiling happily, the color coming back to her cheeks. whereupon paul rodney's brows contract, and with a muttered curse he turns aside and leaves the room, and then the house, without another word or backward glance.
