Molly Bawn Part 28

As the door closes behind them, leaving her to her own society, a rather unhappy shade falls across Molly's face.

A sensation of isolation--loneliness--oppresses her. Indeed, her discouraging reception has wounded her more than she cares to confess even to her own heart. If they did not want her at Herst, why had they invited her? If they did want her, surely they might have met her with more civility; and on this her first visit her grandfather at least might have been present to bid her welcome.

Oh, that this hateful day were at an end! Oh, for some way of making the slow hours run hurriedly!

With careful fingers she unfastens and pulls down all her lovely hair until it falls in rippling ma.s.ses to her waist. As carefully, as lingeringly, she rolls it up again into its usual artistic knot at the back of her head. With still loitering movements she bathes the dust of travel from her face and hands, adjusts her soft gray gown, puts straight the pale-blue ribbon at her throat, and now tells herself, with a triumphant smile, that she has got the better of at least half an hour of this detested day.

Alas! alas! the little ormolu ornament that ticks with such provoking _empress.e.m.e.nt_ upon the chimney-piece a.s.sures her that her robing has occupied exactly ten minutes from start to finish.

This will never do. She cannot well spend her evening in her own room, no matter how eagerly she may desire to do so; so, taking heart of grace, she makes a wicked _moue_ at her own rueful countenance in the looking-gla.s.s, and, opening her door hastily, lest her courage fail her, runs down the broad oak staircase into the hall beneath.

Quick-witted, as women of her temperament always are, she remembers the situation of the room she had first entered, and, pa.s.sing by all the other closed doors, goes into it, to find herself once more in Marcia's presence.

"Ah! you have come," says Miss Amherst, looking up languidly from her _macrame_, with a frozen smile that owes its one charm to its brevity. "You have made a quick toilet." With a supercilious glance at Molly's Quakerish gown, that somehow fits her and suits her to perfection. "You are not fatigued?"

"Fatigued?" Smiling, with a view to conciliation. "Oh, no; it is such a little journey."

"So it is. How strange this should be our first meeting, living so close to each other as we have done! My grandfather's peculiar disposition of course accounts for it: he has quite a morbid horror of aliens."

"Is one's granddaughter to be considered an alien?" asks Molly, with a laugh. "The suggestion opens an enormous field for reflection. If so, what are one's nephews, and one's nieces, and cousins, first, second, and third? Poor third-cousins! it makes one sad to think of them."

"I think perhaps Mr. Amherst's incivility toward you arose from his dislike to your mother's marriage. You don't mind my speaking, do you?

It was more than good of you to come here at all, considering the circ.u.mstances,--I don't believe I could have been so forgiving,--but I know he felt very bitterly on the subject, and does so still."

"Does he? How very absurd! Amhersts cannot always marry Amhersts, nor would it be a good thing if they could. I suppose, however, even he can be forgiving at times. Now, for instance, how did he get over your father's marriage?"

Marcia raises her head quickly. Her color deepens. She turns a glance full of displeased suspicion upon her companion, who meets it calmly, and with such an amount of innocence in hers as might have disarmed a Machiavelli. Not a shadow of intention mars her expression; her widely-opened blue eyes contain only a desire to know; and Marcia, angry, disconcerted, and puzzled, lets her gaze return to her work. A dim idea that it will not be so easy to ride rough-shod over this country-bred girl as she had hoped oppresses her, while a still more unpleasant doubt that her intended snubbing has recoiled upon her own head adds to her discontent. Partly through policy and partly with a view to showing this recreant Molly the rudeness of her ways, she refuses an answer to her question and starts a different topic in a still more freezing tone.

"You found your room comfortable, I hope, and--all that?"

"Quite all that, thank you," cordially. "And such a pretty room too!"

(She is unaware as she speaks that it is one of the plainest the house contains.) "How large everything seems! When coming down through all those corridors and halls I very nearly lost my way. Stupid of me was it not? But it is an enormous house, I can see."

"Is it? Perhaps so. Very much the size of most country houses, I should say. And yet, no doubt, to a stranger it would seem large. Your own home is not so?"

"Oh, no. If you could only see poor Brooklyn in comparison! It is the prettiest little place in all the world, I think; but then it _is_ little. It would require a tremendous amount of genius to lose one's self in Brooklyn."

"How late it grows!" says Marcia, looking at the clock and rising. "The first bell ought to ring soon. Which would you prefer,--your tea here or in your own room? I always adopt the latter plan when the house is empty, and take it while dressing. By the bye, you have not seen--Mr.

Amherst?"

"My grandfather? No."

"Perhaps he had better be told you are here."

"Has he not yet heard of my arrival?" asks Molly, impulsively, some faint indignation stirring in her breast.

"He knew you were coming, of course; I am not sure if he remembered the exact hour. If you will come with me, I will take you to the library."

Across the hall in nervous silence Molly follows her guide until they reach a small anteroom, beyond which lies the "chamber of horrors," as, in spite of all her efforts to be indifferent, Molly cannot help regarding it.

Marcia knocking softly at the door, a feeble but rasping voice bids them enter; and, throwing it widely open, Miss Amherst beckons her cousin to follow her into the presence of her dreaded grandfather.

Although looking old, and worn, and decrepit, he is still evidently in much better health than when last we saw him, trundling up and down the terraced walk, endeavoring to catch some faint warmth from the burning sun.

His eyes are darker and fiercer, his nose a shade sharper, his temper evidently in an uncorked condition; although he may be safely said to be on the mend, and, with regard to his bodily strength, in a very promising condition.

Before him is a table covered with papers, from which he looks up ungraciously, as the girls enter.

"I have brought you Eleanor Ma.s.sereene," says Marcia, without preamble, in a tone so kind and gentle as makes Molly even at this awful moment marvel at the change.

If it could be possible for the old man's ghastly skin to a.s.sume a paler hue, at this announcement, it certainly does so. With suppressed but apparent eagerness he fixes his eyes upon the new grandchild, and as he does so his hand closes involuntarily upon the paper beneath it; his mouth twitches; a shrinking pain contracts his face. Yes, she is very like her dead mother.

"How long has she been in my house?" he asks, presently, after a pause that to Molly has been hours, still with his gaze upon her, though beyond this prolonged examination of her features he has vouchsafed her no welcome.

"She came by the half-past four train. Williams met her with the brougham."

"And it is nearly six. Pray why have I been kept so long in ignorance of her arrival?" Not once as he speaks does he look at Marcia, or at anything but Molly's pale, pretty, disturbed face.

"Dear grandpapa, you have forgotten. Yesterday I told you the hour we expected her. But no doubt, with so many important matters upon your mind," with a glance at the littered table, "you forgot this one."

"I did," slowly, "so effectually as to make me doubt having ever heard it. No, Marcia, no more excuses, no more lies: you need not explain. Be satisfied that whatever plans you formed to prevent my bidding your cousin welcome to my house were highly successful. At intrigue you are a proficient. I admire proficiency in all things,--but--for the future--be so good as to remember that I _never_ forget."

"Dear grandpapa," with a pathetic but very distinct sigh, "it is very hard to be misjudged!"

"Granted. Though at times one must own it has its advantages. Now, if for instance I could only bring myself, now and again, to misjudge you, how very much more conducive to the accomplishment of your aims it would be! Leave the room. I wish to speak to your cousin."

Reluctant, but not daring to disobey, and always with the same aggrieved expression upon her face, Marcia withdraws.

As the door closes behind her, Mr. Amherst rises, and holds out one hand to Molly.

"You are welcome," he says, quietly, but coldly, and evidently speaking with an effort.

Molly, coming slowly up to him, lays her hand in his, while entertaining an earnest hope that she will not be called upon to seal the interview with a kiss.

"Thank you," she says, faintly, not knowing what else to say, and feeling thoroughly embarra.s.sed by the fixity and duration of his regard.

"Yes," speaking again, slowly, and absently. "You are welcome--Eleanor.

I am glad I have seen you before--my death. Yes--you are very like---- Go!" with sudden vehemence, "leave me; I wish to be alone."

Sinking back heavily into his arm-chair, he motions her from him, and Molly, finding herself a moment later once more in the anteroom, breathes a sigh of thankfulness that this her first strange interview with her host is at an end.

"Dress me quickly, Sarah," she says, as she gains her own room about half an hour later, and finds that damsel awaiting her. "And make me look as beautiful as possible; I have yet another cousin to investigate, and something tells me the third will be the charm, and that I shall get on with him. Young men"--ingenuously, and forgetting she is expressing her thoughts aloud--"are certainly a decided improvement on young women.

If, however, there is really any understanding between Philip and Marcia, it will rather spoil my amus.e.m.e.nt and--still I need not torment myself beforehand, as that is a matter I shall learn in five minutes."

"There's a very nice young man down-stairs, miss," breaks in Sarah, at this juncture, with a simper that has the pleasing effect of making one side of her face quite an inch shorter than the other.