Molly Bawn Part 61

"None." Laughing. "You just dress yourselves in white sheets, or that, and hold a plate in your hands filled with whiskey and salt, and--there you are. You have no idea of the tremendous effect. You will be more like a corpse than anything you can imagine."

"How cheerful!" murmurs Cecil. "You make me long for the 'sheets and that.'"

"Do the whiskey and the salt ever blow up?" asks Molly, cautiously.

"Because if so----"

"No, they don't; of course not. Say nothing about it to the others, and we shall astonish them by and by. It is an awfully becoming thing, too," says Potts, with a view to encouragement; "you will look like marble statues."

"We are trusting you again," says Cecil, regarding him fixedly.

"Plantagenet, if you should again be our undoing----"

"Not the slightest fear of a _fiasco_ this time," says Potts, comfortably.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"Here's such a coil! Come, what says Romeo?"

--Shakespeare.

As eleven o'clock strikes, any one going up the stairs at Herst would have stopped with a mingled feeling of terror and admiration at one particular spot, where, in a niche, upon a pedestal, a very G.o.ddess stands.

It is Molly, clad in white, from head to heel, with a lace scarf twisted round her head and shoulders, and with one bare arm uplifted, while with the other she holds an urn-shaped vase beneath her face, from which a pale-blue flame arises.

Her eyes, larger, deeper, bluer than usual, are fixed with sad and solemn meaning upon s.p.a.ce. She scarcely seems to breathe; no quiver disturbs her frame, so intensely does she listen for a coming footstep.

In her heart she hopes it may be Luttrell's.

The minutes pa.s.s. Her arm is growing tired, her eyes begin to blink against her will; she is on the point of throwing up the game, descending from her pedestal, and regaining her own room, when a footfall recalls her to herself and puts her on her mettle.

Nearer it comes,--still nearer, until it stops altogether. Molly does not dare turn to see who it is. A moment later, a wild cry, a smothered groan, falls upon her ear, and, turning her head, terrified, she sees her grandfather rush past her, tottering, trembling, until he reaches his own room, where he disappears.

Almost at the same instant the others who have been in the drawing-room, drawn to the spot by the delicate machinations of Mr.

Potts, come on the scene; while Marcia, who has heard that scared cry, emerges quickly from among them and pa.s.ses up the stairs into her grandfather's room.

There follows an awkward silence. Cecil, who has been adorning a corner farther on, comes creeping toward them, pale and nervous, having also been a witness to Mr. Amherst's hurried flight; and she and Molly, in their masquerading costumes, feel, to say the least of it, rather small.

They cast a withering glance at Potts, who has grown a lively purple; but he only shakes his head, having no explanation to offer, and knowing himself for once in his life to be unequal to the occasion.

Mrs. Darley is the first to break silence.

"What is it? What has happened? Why are you both here in your night-dresses?" she asks, unguardedly, losing her head in the excitement of the moment.

"What do you mean?" says Cecil, angrily. "'Nightdresses'! If you don't know dressing-gowns when you see them, I am sorry for you. Plantagenet, what has happened?"

"It was grandpapa," says Molly, in a frightened tone. "He came by, and I think was upset by my--appearance. Oh, I hope I have not done him any harm! Mr. Potts, _why_ did you make me do it?"

"How could I tell?" replies Potts, who is as white as their costumes.

"What an awful shriek he gave! I thought such a stern old card as he is would have had more pluck!"

"I was positive he was in bed," says Cecil, "or I should never have ventured."

"He is never where he ought to be," mutters Potts gloomily.

Here conversation fails them. For once they are honestly dismayed, and keep their eyes fixed in anxious expectation on the bedchamber of their host. Will Marcia _never_ come?

At length the door opens and she appears, looking pale and _distraite_. Her eyes light angrily as they fall on Molly.

"Grandpapa is very much upset. He is ill. It was heartless,--a cruel trick," she says, rather incoherently. "He wishes to see you, Eleanor, instantly. You had better go to him."

"Must I?" asks Molly, who is quite colorless, and much inclined to cry.

"Unless you wish to add disobedience to your other unfeeling conduct,"

replies Marcia, coldly.

"No, no; of course not. I will go," says Molly, nervously.

With faltering footsteps she approaches the fatal door, whilst the others disperse and return once more to the drawing-room,--all, that is, except Lady Stafford, who seeks her own chamber, and Mr. Potts, who, in an agony of doubt and fear, lingers about the corridor, awaiting Molly's return.

As she enters her grandfather's room she finds him lying on a couch, half upright, an angry, disappointed expression on his face, distrust in his searching eyes.

"Come here," he says, harshly, motioning her with one finger to his side, "and tell me why you, of all others, should have chosen to play this trick upon me. Was it revenge?"

"Upon you, grandpapa! Oh, not upon you," says Molly, shocked. "It was all a mistake,--a mere foolish piece of fun; but I never thought _you_ would have been the one to see me."

"Are you lying? Let me look at you. If so, you do it cleverly. Your face is honest. Yet I hear it was for me alone this travesty was enacted."

"Whoever told you so spoke falsely," Molly says, pale but firm, a great indignation toward Marcia rising in her breast. She has her hands on the back of a chair, and is gazing anxiously but openly at the old man.

"Why should I seek to offend you, who have been so kind to me,--whose bread I have eaten? You do not understand: you wrong me."

"I thought it was your mother," whispers he, with a quick s.h.i.+ver, "from her grave, returned to reproach me,--to remind me of all the miserable past. It was a senseless thought. But the likeness was awful,--appalling.

She was my favorite daughter, yet she of all creatures was the one to thwart me most; and I did not forgive. I left her to pine for the luxuries to which she was accustomed from her birth, and could not then procure. She was delicate. I let her wear her heart out waiting for a worthless pardon. And what a heart it was! _Then_ I would not forgive; now--_now_ I crave forgiveness. Oh, that the dead could speak!"

He covers his face with his withered hands, that shake and tremble like October leaves, and a troubled sigh escapes him. For the moment the stern old man has disappeared; only the penitent remains.

"Dear grandpapa, be comforted," says Molly, much affected, sinking on her knees beside him. Never before, by either brother or grandfather, has her dead mother been so openly alluded to. "She did forgive. So sweet as she was, how could she retain a bitter feeling? Listen to me.

Am I not her only child? Who so meet to offer you her pardon? Let me comfort you."

Mr. Amherst makes no reply, but he gently presses the fingers that have found their way around his neck.

"I, too, would ask pardon," Molly goes on, in her sweet, low, _trainante_ voice, that has a sob in it here and there. "How shall I gain it after all that I have done--to distress you so, although unintentionally?--And you think hardly of me, grandpapa? You think I did it to annoy you?"

"No, no; not now."

"I have made you ill," continues Molly, still crying; "I have caused you pain. Oh, grandpapa! do say you are not angry with me."