Molly Bawn Part 74

Reluctantly, with trembling steps and hidden eyes, Molly forces herself to approach the dreaded spot. For the first time she is about to look on our undying foe,--to make acquaintance with the last great change of all.

A cold hand has closed upon her heart; she is consumed by an awesome, unconquerable shrinking. She feels a difficulty in breathing; almost she thinks her senses are about to desert her.

As she reaches the side of the bed opposite to where Let.i.tia crouches, she compels herself to look, and for the moment sustains a pa.s.sionate feeling of relief, as the white sheet that covers all alone meets her gaze.

And yet not all. A second later, and a dread more awful than the first overpowers her, for there, beneath the fair, pure linen shroud, the features are clearly marked, the form can be traced; she can a.s.sure herself of the shape of the head,--the nose,--the hands folded so quietly, so obediently, in their last eternal sleep upon the cold breast. But no faintest breathing stirs them. He is dead!

Her eyes grow to this fearful thing. To steady herself she lays her hand upon the back of a chair. Not for all the world contains would she lean upon that bed, lest by any chance she should disturb the quiet sleeper. The other hand she puts out in trembling silence to raise a corner of the sheet.

"I _cannot_," she groans aloud, withdrawing her fingers shudderingly. But no one heeds. Three times she essays to throw back the covering, to gaze upon her dead, and fails; and then at last the deed is accomplished, and Death in all its silent majesty lies smiling before her.

Is it John? Yes, it is, of course. And yet--_is it_? Oh, the changeless sweetness of the smile,--the terrible shading,--the moveless serenity!

Spell-bound, heart-broken, she gazes at him for a minute, and then hastily, though with the tenderest reverence, she hides away his face.

A heavy, bursting sigh escapes her; she raises her head, and becomes conscious that Let.i.tia is upon her knees and is staring at her fixedly across the bed.

There is about her an expression that is almost wild in its surprise and horror.

"_You_ do not cry either," says she, in a clear, intense whisper.

"I thought I was the only thing on earth so unnatural. I have not wept.

I have not lost my senses. I can still think. I have lost my all,--my husband,--John!--and yet I have not shed one single tear. And you, Molly,--he loved you so dearly, and I fancied you loved him too,--and still you are as cold, as poor a creature as myself."

There is no reply. Molly is regarding her speechlessly. In truth, she is dumb from sheer misery and the remembrance of what she has just seen. Are Let.i.tia's words true? _Is_ she heartless?

There is a long silence,--how long neither of them ever knows,--and then something happens that achieves what all the despair and sorrow have failed in doing. In the house, through it, awakening all the silence, rings a peal of childish laughter. It echoes; it trembles along the corridor outside; it seems to shake the very walls of the death-chamber.

Both the women start violently. Molly, raising her hands to her head, falls back against the wall nearest to her, unutterable horror in her face. Let.i.tia, with a quick, sharp cry, springs to her feet, and then, running to Molly, flings her arms around her.

"Molly, Molly," she exclaims, wildly, "am I going mad? That cannot--it cannot be _his_ child."

Then they cling to each other in silent agony, until at length some cruel band around their hearts gives way, and the sorrowful, healing, blessed tears spring forth.

The last sad scene is over; the curtain has fallen. The final separation has taken place. Their dead has been buried out of their sight.

The room in which he lay has been thrown open, the blinds raised, the windows lifted. Through them the sweet, fresh wind comes rus.h.i.+ng in.

The heartless sun--now grown cold and wintry--has sent some of its rays to peer curiously where so lately the body lay.

The children are growing more demonstrative. More frequently, and with less fear of reproof, the sound of their mirth is heard throughout the silent house. Only this very morning the boy Lovat--the eldest born, his father's idol--went whistling through the hall. No doubt it was in a moment of forgetfulness he did it; no doubt the poor lad checked himself an instant later, with a bitter pang of self-reproach; but his mother heard him, and the sound smote her to the heart.

Mr. Buscarlet (who is a kind little man, in spite of his "ways and his manners" and a few eccentricities of speech), at a word from Molly comes to Brooklyn, and, having carefully examined letters, papers, and affairs generally, turns their fears into unhappy certainty. One thousand pounds is all that remains to them on which to live or starve.

The announcement of their ruin is hardly news to Let.i.tia. She has been prepared for it. The letter found crushed in her dead husband's hand, although suppressing half the truth, did not deceive her. Even at that awful moment she quite realized her position. Not so Molly. With all the unreasoning trust of youth she hoped against hope until it was no longer possible to do so, trying to believe that something forgotten would come to light, some unremembered sum, to relieve them from absolute want. But Mr. Buscarlet's search has proved ineffective.

Now, however, when hope is actually at an end, all her natural self-reliance and bravery return to her; and in the very mouth of despair she makes a way for herself and for those whom she loves to escape.

After two nights' wakeful hesitation, shrinking, doubt, and fear, she forms a resolution, from which she never afterward turns aside until compelled to do so by unrestrainable circ.u.mstances.

"It is a very distressing case," says Mr. Buscarlet, blowing his nose oppressively,--the more so that he feels for her very sincerely; "distressing, indeed. I don't know one half so afflicting. I really do--not--see what is to be done."

"Do not think me presumptuous if I say I do," says Molly. "I have a plan already formed, and, if it succeeds, I shall at least be able to earn bread for us all."

"My dear young lady, how? You with--ahem!--you must excuse me if I say--your youth and beauty, how do you propose to earn your bread?"

"It is my secret as yet,"--with a faint wan smile. "Let me keep it a little longer. Not even Mrs. Ma.s.sereene knows of it. Indeed, it is too soon to proclaim my design. People might scoff it; though for all that I shall work it out. And something tells me I shall succeed."

"Yes, yes, we all think we shall succeed when young," says the old lawyer, sadly, moved to keenest compa.s.sion at sight of the beautiful, earnest face before him. "It is later on, when we are faint and weary with the buffetings of fortune, the sad awakening comes."

"I shall not be disheartened by rebuffs; I shall not fail," says Molly, intently. "However cold and ungenerous the world may prove, I shall conquer it at last. Victory shall stay with me."

"Well, well, I would not discourage any one. There are none so worthy of praise as those who seek to work out their own independence, whether they live or die in the struggle. But work--of the sort you mean--is hard for one so young. You have a plan. Well, so have I. But have you never thought of your grandfather? He is very kindly disposed toward you; and if he----"

"I have no time for 'buts' and 'ifs,'" she interrupts him, gently. "My grandfather may be kindly disposed toward _me_, but not toward _mine_,--and that counts for much more. No, I must fall back upon myself alone. I have quite made up my mind," says Molly, throwing up her small proud head, with a brave smile, "and the knowledge makes me more courageous. I feel so strong to do, so determined to vanquish all obstacles, that I know I shall neither break down nor fail."

"I trust not, my dear; I trust not. You have my best wishes, at least."

"Thank you," says Molly, pressing his kind old hand.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"I fain would follow love, if that could be."

--Tennyson.

Let.i.tia in her widowed garments looks particularly handsome. All the "trappings and the signs" of woe suit well her tall, full figure, her fair and placid face.

Molly looks taller, slenderer than usual in her mourning robes. She is one of those who grow slight quickly under affliction. Her rounded cheeks have fallen in and show sad hollows; her eyes are larger, darker, and show beneath them great purple lines born of many tears.

She has not seen Luttrell since her return home,--although Let.i.tia has,--and rarely asks for him. Her absorbing grief appears to have swallowed up all other emotions. She has not once left the house. She works little, she does not read at all; she is fast falling into a settled melancholy.

"Molly," says Let.i.tia, "Tedcastle is in the drawing-room. He particularly asks to see you. Do not refuse him again. Even though your engagement, as you say, is at an end, still remember, dearest, how kind, how more than thoughtful, he has been in many ways since--of late----"

Her voice breaks.

"Yes, yes, I will see him," Molly says, wearily, and, rising, wends her way slowly, reluctantly, to the room which contains her lover.

At sight of him some chords that have lain hushed and forgotten in her heart for many days come to life again. Her pulses throb, albeit languidly, her color deepens; a something that is almost gladness awakes within her. Alas! how human are we all, how short-lived our keenest regrets! With the living love so near her she for the first time (though only for a moment) forgets the dead one.

In her trailing, sombre dress, with her sorrowful white cheeks, and quivering lips, she goes up to him and places her hand in his; while he, touched with a mighty compa.s.sion, stares at her, marking with a lover's careful eye all the many alterations in her face. So much havoc in so short a time!

"How changed you are! How you must have suffered!" he says, tenderly.

"I have," she answers; and then, grown nervous, because of her trouble and the fluttering of her heart, and that tears of late are so ready to her, she covers her face with her hands, and, with the action of a tired and saddened child, turning, hides it still more effectually upon his breast.