Rossmoyne Part 38

"Because----That is quite another thing altogether. I mean----I----it seems to me----No matter _what_ it seems now; we can't discuss it," says Miss Priscilla, making a desperate effort to catch the horns of her dilemma and to escape from it.

"Let us discuss our party instead," says Kit, cheerfully, who is really of the greatest use at times. "When is it to be, Aunt Pris?"

"Next week, I suppose," says Miss Penelope, promptly, seeing that Miss Priscilla is still too agitated to reply. "And I think it would be rather nice to have tea in the orchard."

"Oh! how quite too lovely!" says Kit, clasping her hands.

"Quite too utterly consummately, preciously intense?" mutters Terence, _sotto voce_, regarding Kit sideways, who returns his rapturous glance with one full of ineffable disdain.

"I hope Michael won't object," says Miss Penelope, nervously. Michael is the gardener, and they are all, without exception, afraid of him.

"Nonsense, my dear! why should he?" says Miss Priscilla. "It isn't because he has been here for years that he is to forbid us the use of our own grounds, and of late I consider there is great fault to be found with him. Long service should not generate neglect, and of late there has not been a good lettuce or a respectable dish of asparagus in the garden."

"There wasn't even any thyme last week," says Kit, who maintains an undying feud with Michael. "He had to get some fresh plants from Cahirmore."

"Time was made for slaves," says Terence, meditatively. "_You_ aren't a slave, are you?"

"I should hope not," says Kit, icily.

"Then you can't want time: so don't worry that poor old man in the garden about it. He hasn't a scythe, or a bald head, or a dismal forelock: so he _can't_ know anything about it."

"You are so clever," says the younger Miss Beresford, with unmixed scorn, "that I wonder something dreadful doesn't happen to you."

"So do I," says Terence.

"Well, auntie, and whom shall we ask to meet these men of war?" says Kit, ignoring him,--publicly, to his great delight.

"I suppose Madam O'Connor and all her party, and the Frenches, and Lord Rossmoyne,--who I hear is still in the country,--and----Penelope, my dear, will you sit down and write the invitations now for Friday next, as I must get ready to go to the coast-guard station? That girl of Mitson's is ill, and wants to see me."

Monica rising at this moment to leave the room, Kit follows her.

"It is really _too_ amazing," she says, when they find themselves in the hall. "To think of their blossoming into a real live party! I feel quite overcome."

"So do I," says Monica, laughing.

"There is only one drawback to it," says Kit, softly: "I am _so_ sorry Brian can't be asked."

Monica flushes furiously, and swerves away from her somewhat impatiently; but reply she makes none.

"There are cobwebs in my brain," says Kit, raising her hands languidly to her head, with the oppressed air of one who is bravely struggling with a bad headache. "I think I shall go for a walk to Biddy Daly's to try and rout them. I promised her old mother a pudding the last day I was there, and to-day cook has it ready for me. Will you come with me, Monica? _Do._"

"Not to-day, I think," says Monica, lazily.

"I wish you would! I do so _hate_ going anywhere by myself. And, somehow, I am half afraid to go alone to-day, I feel--so--so faint.

However," with a resigned sigh, "never mind; I dare say if I _do_ drop in a deadly swoon, somebody will pick me up."

"My dear Kit, if you feel like that, don't go," says Monica, naturally alarmed.

"I have promised old Mrs. Daly; I must go," replies Kit, with the determination of a Brutus. "If I am not back in time for dinner, you will understand what has happened."

This is awful! Monica turns quite pale.

"Of course I shall go with you," she says, hurriedly. "Is your head so very bad, darling? How bravely you carried it off in there!" pointing towards the morning-room they have just left. "However, it would be only like you to hide your worries from us, lest they should make us unhappy."

At this, it must be allowed to her credit, Kit feels some strong twinges of remorse,--not enough, however, to compel confession.

"It is really hardly worth talking about," she says, alluding to the headache; and this, at all events, is the strict truth.

CHAPTER XIV.

How Kit's plot is betrayed, and how a walk that begins gayly ends in gloom.

The road to Mrs. Daly's is full of beauty. On one side of it runs Coole, its trees rich with leafy branches; upon the other stretches a common, green and soft, with a grand glimpse of the ocean far down below it.

"Why walk on the dusty road when those fields are green in there?" says Kit, pointing to Coole; and, after a faint hesitation, Monica follows her over the wall and into the dark recesses of the woods. The gra.s.s is knee deep in ferns and trailing verdure; great clumps of honeysuckle, falling from giant limbs of elm, make the air sweet. Some little way to their right--but where they cannot see because of the prodigality of moss and alder and bracken--a little hidden brook runs merrily, making

"Sweet music with th' enamell'd stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage."

Some thought belonging to the past night coming to Kit, she turns to Monica with a little laugh.

"How silent you have been about last night's adventure!" she says. "I watched you from your own window until the shadows caught you. You looked like a flitting spirit,--a--a bhoot."

"A _boot_!" says Monica, very justly surprised.

"Yes," loftily. Kit's educational course, as directed by herself, has been of the erratic order, and has embraced many topics unknown to Monica. From the political economy of the Faroe Isles, it has reached even to the hidden mysteries of Hindostan.

"I must have struck you then as being in my liveliest mood," says Monica, still laughing. "Terry told us yesterday he was as gay as old boots. As I looked like _one_, I suppose I was at least half as gay as he was. After all, there is nothing like leather, no matter how ancient."

"There's an _h_ in my bhoot," says Kit, with some disgust. "Really, the ignorance of some people--even the _nicest_--is, surprising."

"Then why don't you take it out?" says Monica, frivolously. "Not that I know in the very least what harm a poor innocent letter could do there."

"You don't understand," says Kit, pitifully.

"I don't indeed," says Monica, unabashed.

"A bhoot is an Indian ghost."

"And you thought I looked like an Indian ghost! with a turban! and an Afghan! and a scimitar! Oh, Kit! Did I really look like the mahogany table beneath the silver moonbeams? and did my eyes glitter?"

"What a goose you are!" says Kit, roaring with laughter. "No, you looked lovely; but I was reading an Indian story yesterday, and it came into my head."

"You read too much," says Monica. "'Much learning will make you mad,' if you don't take care. Remember what Lord Bacon says, 'Reading maketh a full man.' How would _you_ like to be a full woman,--like Madam O'Connor, for example?"