Molly Bawn Part 32

"I understand my husband, and my husband understands me," she is in the habit of saying to those who will take the trouble to listen; which is strictly true as regards the latter part of the speech, though perhaps the former is not so wise an a.s.sertion.

With her she brings her only child, a beautiful little boy of six.

She greets Marcia with effusion, and gushes over Molly.

"So glad, dear, so charmed to make your acquaintance. Have always felt such a deep interest in your poor dear mother's sad but romantic story.

So out of the common as it was, you know, and delightfully odd, and--and--all that. Of course you are aware there is a sort of cousins.h.i.+p between us. My father married your----" and so on, and on, and on.

She talks straight through lunch to any one and every one without partiality; although afterward no one can remember what it was she was so eloquent about.

"Tedcastle not come?" she says, presently, catching Marcia's eye. "I quite thought he was here. What an adorable boy he was! I do hope he is not changed. If India has altered him, it will be quite too bad."

"He may come yet," replies Marcia; "though I now think it unlikely.

When writing he said to-day, or to-morrow; and with him that always means to-morrow. He is fond of putting off; his second thoughts are always his best."

"Always," thinks Molly, angrily, feeling suddenly a keen sense of sure disappointment. What does she know about him? After all he said on parting he must, he _will_ come to-day.

Yet somehow, spite of this comforting conclusion, her spirits sink, her smile becomes less ready, her luncheon grows flavorless. Something within compels her to believe that not until the morrow shall she see her lover.

When they leave the dining-room she creeps away unnoticed, and, donning her hat, sallies forth alone into the pleasant wood that surrounds the house.

For a mile or two she walks steadily on, crunching beneath her feet with a certain sense of vicious enjoyment those early leaves that already have reached death. How very monotonous all through is a big wood! Trees, gra.s.s, sky overhead! Sky, gra.s.s, trees.

She pulls a few late wild flowers that smile up at her coaxingly, and turns them round and round within her fingers, not altogether tenderly.

What a fuss poets, and painters, and such-like, make about flowers, wild ones especially! When all is said, there is a terrible sameness about them; the same little pink ones here, the same little blue ones there; here the inevitable pale yellow, there the pure warm violet.

Well, no doubt there is certainly a wonderful variety--but still----

Looking up suddenly from her weak criticism, she sees coming quickly toward her--very close to her--Teddy Luttrell.

With a glad little cry, she flings the ill-treated flowers from her and runs to him with hands outstretched.

"You have come," she cries, "after all! I _knew_ you would; although she said you wouldn't. Oh, Teddy, I had _quite_ given you up."

Luttrell takes no notice of this contradictory speech. With his arms round her, he is too full of the intense happiness of meeting after separation the beloved, to heed mere words. His eyes are fastened on her perfect face.

How more than fair she is! how in his absence he has misjudged her beauty! or is it that she grows in excellence day by day? Not in all his lover's silent raptures has he imagined her half as lovely as she now appears standing before him, her hands clasped in his, her face flushed with unmistakable joy at seeing him again.

"Darling, darling!" he says, with such earnest delight in his tones that she returns one of his many kisses, out of sheer sympathy. For though glad as she is to welcome him as a sure ally at Herst, she hardly feels the same longing for the embrace that he (with his heart full of her alone) naturally does.

"You look as if you were going to tell me I have grown tall," she says, amused at his prolonged examination of her features. "John always does, when he returns from London, with the wild hope of keeping me down.

Have I?"

"How can I tell? I have not taken my eyes from your face yet."

"Silly boy, and I have seen all the disimprovements in you long ago. I have also seen that you are wearing an entirely new suit of clothes.

Such reckless extravagance! but they are very becoming, and I am fond of light gray, so you are forgiven. Why did you not come sooner? I have been _longing_ for you. Oh, Teddy, I don't like Marcia or grandpapa a bit; and Philip has been absent nearly all the time; you said you would come early."

"So I did, by the earliest train; you could hardly have left the house when I arrived, and then I started instantly to find you. My own dear darling," with a sigh of content, "how good it is to see you again, and how well you are looking!"

"Am I?" laughing. "So are you, disgracefully well. You haven't a particle of feeling, or you would be emaciated by this time. Now confess you did not miss me at all."

"Were I to speak forever, I could not tell you how much. Are you not 'the very eyes of me'?" says the young man, fondly.

"That is a very nonsensical quotation," says Molly, gayly. "Were you to see with my eyes, just consider how different everything would appear.

Now, for instance, _I_ would never have so far forgotten myself as to fall so idiotically and ridiculously in love, as you did, with beautiful Molly Ma.s.sereene!"

At this little touch of impertinence they both laugh merrily. After which, with some hesitation, and a rather heightened color, Tedcastle draws a case from his pocket, and presents it to her.

"I brought you a--a present," he says, "because I know you are fond of pretty things."

As she opens the case and sees within it, lying on its purple velvet bed, a large dull gold locket, with a wreath of raised forget-me-nots in turquoises and enamel on one side, she forms her lips into a round "Oh!" of admiration and delight, more satisfactory than any words.

"Do you like it? I am so glad! I saw it one day, quite accidentally, in a window, and at once it reminded me of you. I thought it would exactly suit you. Do you remember down by the river-side that night, after our first important quarrel, when I asked you to marry me?"

"I remember," softly.

"You had forget-me-nots in your hands then, and in your dress. I can never forget you, as you looked at that moment; and those flowers will ever be a.s.sociated with you in my mind. Surely they are the prettiest that grow. I call them 'my sweet love's flower.'"

"How fond you are of me!" she says, wistfully, something like moisture in her eyes, "and," turning her gaze again upon his gift, "you are too good: you are always thinking how to please me. There is only one thing wanting to make this locket perfect," raising her liquid eyes to his again, "and that is your face inside it."

At which words, you may be sure, Luttrell is repaid over and over again all the thought and care he has expended on the choosing of the trinket.

"And so you are not in love with Herst?" he says, presently, as they move on through the sweet wood, his arm around her.

"With Herst? No, I have no fault to find with Herst; the place is beautiful. But I confess I do not care about my grandfather or Marcia: of the two I prefer my grandfather, but that is saying very little.

Philip alone has been very nice to me,--indeed, more than kind."

"More! What does Marcia say to that?"

"Oh, there is nothing between them; I am sure of that. They either hate each other or else familiarity has bred contempt between them, and they avoid each other all they can, and never speak unless compelled. For instance, she says to him, 'Tea or coffee, Philip?' and he makes her a polite reply; or he says to her, 'Shall I stir the fire for you?' and she makes _him_ a polite reply. But it can hardly be called a frantic attachment."

"Like ours?" laughing and bending his tall slight figure to look into her face.

"In our case you have all the franticness to yourself," she says; but as she says it she puts her own soft little hand over the one that encircles her waist, to take the sting out of her words; though why she said it puzzles even herself: nevertheless there is great truth, in her remark, and he knows it.

"Then Philip is handsome," she says: "it is quite a pleasure to look at him. And I admire him very much."

"He _is_ a good-looking fellow," reluctantly, and as though it were a matter of surprise nature's having bestowed beauty upon Philip Shadwell, "but surly."

"'Surly!' not to me."

"Oh, of course not to you! A man must be a brute to be uncivil to a woman. And I don't say he is that," slowly, and as though it were yet an undecided point whether Philip should be cla.s.sed with the lower creation or not. "Do not let your admiration for him go too far, darling; remember----"

"About that," interrupts she, hurriedly, "you have something to remember also. Your promise to keep our engagement a dead secret. You will not break it?"

"I never," a little stiffly, "break a promise. You need not have reminded me of this one."

Silence.