Molly Bawn Part 26

"And yet they know it can be left to any one else."

"To you, for instance."

"That would hardly alter your position, except that you would be then, not heir, but master," she says, smiling sweetly at him. "No, I was supposing myself also disinherited. This cousin that is coming,--Eleanor Ma.s.sereene,--she, too, is his grandchild."

As a rule, when speaking of those we hate, quite as much as when speaking of those we love, we use the p.r.o.noun alone. Mr. Amherst is "he" always to his relatives.

"What! Can you believe it possible a little uneducated country girl, with probably a snub nose, thick boots, and no manners to speak of, can cut you out? Marcia, you grow modest. Why, even I, a man, can see her in my mind's eye, with a freckled complexion (he hates freckles), and a frightened gasp between each word, and a wholesome horror of wine, and a general air of hoping the earth will open presently to swallow her up."

"But how if she is totally different from all this?"

"She won't be different. Her father was a wild Irishman. Besides, I have seen her sort over and over again, and it is positive cruelty to animals to drag the poor creatures from their dull homes into the very centre of life and gayety. They never can make up their minds whether the butler that announces dinner is or is not the latest arrival; and they invariably say, 'No, thank you,' when asked to have anything. To them the fish-knife is a thing unknown and afternoon tea the wildest dissipation."

"Well, I can only hope and trust she will turn out just what you say,"

says Marcia, laughing.

Four days later, meeting her on his way to the stables, he throws her a letter from his solicitor.

"It is all right," he says, and goes on a step or two, as though hurried, while she hastily runs her eyes over it.

"Well, and now your mind is at rest," she calls after him, as she sees the distance widening between them.

"For the present, yes."

"Well, here, take your letter."

"Tear it up; I don't want it," he returns, and disappears round the angle of the house.

Her fingers form themselves as though about to obey him and tear the note in two. Then she pauses.

"He may want it," she says to herself, hesitating. "Business letters are sometimes useful afterward. I will keep it for him."

She slips it into her pocket, and for the time being thinks no more of it. That night, as she undresses, finding it again, she throws it carelessly into a drawer, where it lies for many days forgotten.

It is the twentieth of August: in seven days more the "little country girl with freckles and a snub nose" will be at Herst Royal, longing "for the earth to open and swallow her up."

To Philip her coming is a matter of the most perfect indifference. To Marcia it is an event,--and an unpleasant one.

When, some three years previously, Marcia Amherst consented to leave the mother she so sincerely loved to tend an old and odious man, she did so at his request and with her mother's full sanction, through desire of the gold that was to be (it was tacitly understood) the reward of her devotion. There was, however, another condition imposed upon her before she might come to Herst and take up permanent quarters there. This was the entire forsaking of her mother, her people, and the land of her birth.

To this also there was open agreement made: which agreement was in private broken. She was quite clever enough to manage a clandestine correspondence without fear of discovery; but letters, however frequent, hardly make up for enforced absence from those we love, and Marcia's affection for her Italian mother was the one pure sentiment in her rather scheming disposition. Yet the love of riches, that is innate in all, was sufficiently strong in her to bear her through with her task.

But now the fear that this new-comer, this interloper, may, after all her detested labor, by some fell chance become a recipient of the spoil (no matter in how small a degree), causes her trouble.

Of late, too, she has not been happy. Philip's coldness has been on the increase. He himself, perhaps, is hardly aware of the change. But what woman loving but feels the want of love? And at times her heart is racked with pa.s.sionate grief.

Now, as she and her lip-love stand side by side in the oriel window that overlooks the graveled path leading into the gardens, the dislike to her cousin's coming burns hotly within her.

Outside, in his bath chair, wheeled up and down by a long-suffering attendant, goes Mr. Amherst, in happy ignorance of the four eyes that watch his coming and going with such distaste.

Up and down, up and down he goes, his weakly head bent upon his chest, his fierce eyes roving restlessly to and fro. He is still invalid enough to prefer the chair to the more treacherous aid of his stick.

"He reminds me of nothing so much as an Egyptian mummy," says Philip, presently: "he looks so hard, and shriveled, and unreal. Toothless, too."

"He ought to die," says Marcia, with perfect calmness, as though she had suggested the advisability of his going for a longer drive.

"Die!" With a slight start, turning to look at her. "Ah! yes, of course. But"--with a rather forced laugh--"he _won't_, take my word for it. Old gentlemen with unlimited means and hungry heirs live forever."

"He has lived long enough," says Marcia, still in the same slow, calculating tone. "Of what use is he? Who cares for him? What good does he do in each twenty-four hours? He is merely taking up valuable room,--keeping what should by right be yours and mine. And, Philip,"

laying her hand upon his arm to insure his attention,--"I understand the mother of this girl who is coming was his favorite daughter."

"Well," surprised at her look and tone, which have both grown intense,--"that is not my fault. You need not cast such an upbraiding glance on me."

"What if he should alter his will in her favor? More unlikely things have happened. I cannot divest myself of fear when I think of her.

Should he at this late hour repent him of his injustice toward his dead daughter, he might----" She pauses. "But rather than that----" Here she pauses again; and her lids falling somewhat over her eyes, leave them small but wonderfully deep.

"What, Marcia?" asks Philip, with a sudden anxiety he would willingly suppress, were it not for his strong desire to learn what her thoughts may be.

For a full minute she makes him no reply, and then, as though hardly aware of his question, goes on meditatively.

"Philip, how frail he is!" she says, almost in a whisper, as the chair goes creaking beneath the window. "Yet what a hold he has on life! And it is _I_ give him that hold,--_I_ am the rope to which he clings. At night, when sleep is on him and lethargy succeeds to sleep, mine is the duty to rouse him and minister such medicines as charm him back to life. Should I chance to forget, his dreams might end in death.

Last night, as I sat by his bedside, I thought, were I to forget,--what then?"

"Ay, what then? Of what are you thinking?" cries her companion, in a tone of suppressed horror, resisting by a pa.s.sionate movement the spell she had almost cast upon him by the power of her low voice and deep, dark eyes. "Would you kill the old man?"

"Nay, it is but to forget," replies she, dreamily, her whole mind absorbed in her subject, unconscious of the effect she is producing.

She has not turned her eyes upon him (else surely the terrible fear and shrinking in his must have warned her to go no further), but has her gaze fixed rather on the hills and woods and goodly plains for which she is not only willing but eager to sell all that is best of her. "To remain pa.s.sive, and then"--straightening her hand in the direction of the glorious view that spreads itself before them--"all this would be ours."

"Murderess!" cries the young man, in a low, concentrated tone, his voice vibrating with disgust and loathing as he falls back from her a step or two.

The word thrills her. With a start she brings herself back to the present moment, turns to look at him, and, looking slowly, learns the truth. The final crash has come, her fears are realized; she has lost him forever.

"What is it, Philip? what word have you used?" she asks, with nervous vehemence, as though only half comprehending; "why do you look at me so strangely? I have said nothing,--nothing that should make you shrink from me."

"You have said enough,"--with a s.h.i.+ver, "too much; and your face said more. I desire you never to speak to me on the subject again."

"What! you will not even hear me?"

"No; I am only thankful I have found you out in time."

"Say rather for this lucky chance I have afforded you of breaking off a detested engagement," cries she, with sudden bitterness. "Hypocrite!

how long have you been awaiting it?"

"You are talking folly, Marcia. What reason have I ever given you that you should make me such a speech? But for what has just now happened,--but for your insinuations----"

"Ay,"--slowly,--"you shrink from hearing your thoughts put into words."