Molly Bawn Part 35

Opening a small cottage piano at the other end of her pretty sitting-room, she motions Molly to the instrument.

"Play for me," Molly says, bent on doing her very best. "I can sing better standing."

"What, then?"

"This," taking up a song of Sullivan's, after a rapid survey of the pile of music lying on one side.

She sings, her lovely voice thrilling and sobbing through the room, sings with a pa.s.sionate desire to prove her powers, and well succeeds.

For a minute after she has finished, Cecil does not speak, and then goes into raptures, as "is her nature to."

"Oh that I had your voice!" cries she, with genuine tears in her eyes.

"I would have the world at my feet. What a gift! a voice for a G.o.ddess!

Molly--may I call you so?--I absolutely pity Marcia when I think of her consternation."

"She deserves it," says Molly, who feels her cousin's conduct deeply.

"I will sing to-night, if you will get Marcia to ask me."

So the two conspirators arrange their little plan, Cecil Stafford being quite mischievous enough to enjoy the thought of Miss Amherst's approaching discomfiture, while Molly feels all a woman's desire to restore her hurt vanity.

Dinner is half over; and so far it has been highly successful. Mr.

Amherst's temper has taken this satisfactory turn,--he absolutely refuses to speak to any of his guests.

Under these circ.u.mstances every one feels it will be the better part of valor not to address him,--all, that is, except Mrs. Darley, who, believing herself irresistible, goes in for the doubtful task of soothing the bear and coaxing him from his den.

"I am afraid you have a headache, dear Mr. Amherst," she says, beaming sweetly upon him.

"Are you, madam? Even if I were a victim to that foolish disorder, I hardly see why the fact should arouse a feeling of terror in your breast. Only weak-minded girls have headaches."

A faint pause. Conversation is languis.h.i.+ng, dying, among the other guests; they smell the fight afar, and pause in hungry expectation of what is surely coming.

"I pity any one so afflicted," says Mrs. Darley, going valiantly to her death: "I am a perfect martyr to them myself." Here she gives way to a little sympathetic sigh, being still evidently bent on believing him weighed down with pain heroically borne.

"Are you?" says Mr. Amherst, with elaborate politeness. "You astonish me. I should never have thought it. Rheumatism, now, I might. But how old are you, madam?"

"Well, really," says Mrs. Darley, with a pretty childish laugh which she rather cultivates, being under the impression that it is fascinating to the last degree, "asking me so suddenly puts the precise day I was born out of my head. I hardly remember--exactly--when----"

Conversation has died. Every one's attention is fixed; by experience they know the end is nigh.

"Just so; I don't suppose you could, it happened such a long time ago!"

says this terrible old man, with an audible chuckle, that falls upon a silent and (must it be said?) appreciative audience.

Mrs. Darley says no more; what is there left to say? and conversation is once more taken up, and flows on as smoothly as it can, when everybody else is talking for a purpose.

"_Is_ she old?" Molly asks Philip, presently, in a low tone, when the buzz is at its highest; "very old, I mean? She looks so babyish."

"How old would you say?" speaking in the same guarded tone as her own, which has the effect of making Luttrell and Marcia believe them deep in a growing flirtation.

"About twenty-two or three."

"She does it uncommonly well then," says Philip, regarding Mrs. Darley with much admiration,--"uncommonly well; her maid must be a treasure."

"But why? Is she older than that?"

"I don't know, I am sure," says Philip, unkindly, with an amused smile.

"She used to be my age, but I haven't the faintest idea in the world what she is--now!"

After one or two more playful sallies on the part of their host,--for having once found his tongue he takes very good care to use it, and appears fatally bent on making his hearers well aware of its restoration,--the ladies adjourn to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Darley instantly retires behind her handkerchief and gives way to a gentle sob.

"That detestable old man!" she says, viciously; "how I hate him! What have I done, that he should treat me with such exceeding rudeness? One would think I was as old as--as--Methuselah! Not that his mentioning my age puts me out in the least,--why should it?--only his manner is so offensive!"

And as she finishes she rolls up the corners of her handkerchief into a little point, and carefully picks out, one by one, the two tears that adorn her eyes, lest by any chance they should escape, and, running down her cheeks, destroy the evening's painting.

"Don't distress yourself about it, Maud," says Lady Stafford, kindly, although strongly divided between pity for the angry Maud and a growing desire to laugh; "n.o.body minds him: you know we all suffer in turn.

Something tells me it will be my turn next, and then you will indeed see a n.o.ble example of fort.i.tude under affliction."

There is no time for more; the door opens and the men come in, more speedily to-night than is their wont, no doubt driven thereto by the amiability of Mr. Amherst.

Maud suppresses the tell-tale handkerchief, and puts on such a sweet smile as utterly precludes the idea of chagrin. The men, with the usual amount of bungling, fall into their places, and Cecil seizes the opportunity to say to Marcia, in a low tone:

"You say Miss Ma.s.sereene sings. Ask her to give us something now. It is so slow doing nothing all the evening, and I feel Mr. Amherst is bent on mischief. Besides, it is hard on you, expecting you to play all the night through."

"I will ask her if you wish it," Marcia says, indifferently, "but remember, you need not look for a musical treat. I detest bad singing myself."

"Oh, anything, anything," says Cecil, languidly sinking back into her chair.

Thus instigated, Marcia does ask Molly to sing.

"If you will care to hear me," Molly answers, coldly rather than diffidently, and rising, goes to the piano.

"Perhaps there may be something of mine here that you may know," Marcia says, superciliously, pointing to the stand; but Molly, declaring that she can manage without music, sits down and plays the opening chords of Gounod's "Berceuse."

A moment later, and her glorious voice, rarely soft, and sweet as a child's, yet powerful withal, rings through the room, swells, faints, every note a separate delight, falling like rounded pearls from her lips.

A silence--truest praise of all--follows. One by one the talkers cease their chatter; the last word remains a last word; they forget the thought of a moment before.

A dead calm reigns, while Molly sings on, until the final note drops from her with lingering tenderness.

Even then they seem in no hurry to thank her; almost half a minute elapses before any one congratulates her on the exquisite gift that has been given her.

"You have been days in the house, and never until now have let us hear you," Philip says, leaning on the top of the piano; he is an enthusiast where music is concerned. "How selfis.h.!.+ how unkind! I could hardly have believed it of you."

"Was I ever asked before?" Molly says, raising her eyes to his, while her fingers still run lightly over the notes.

"I don't know. I suppose it never occurred to us, and, as you may have noticed, there is a dearth of graciousness among us. But for you to keep such a possession a secret was more than cruel. Sing again."

"I must not monopolize the piano: other people can sing too."