Rossmoyne Part 76

CHAPTER XXVIII.

How the Misses Blake receive the nephew of their sworn foe--How Monica at all hazards proclaims her truth--And how Miss Priscilla sees something that upsets her and the belief of years.

One moment of coma ensues. It is an awful moment, in which n.o.body seems even to breathe. The two Misses Blake turn into a rigidity that might mean stone; the young man pauses irresolutely, yet with a sternness about his lips that bespeaks a settled purpose not to be laid aside for any reason, and that adds some years to his age.

Monica has turned to him. The tangled wool has fallen unconsciously from her hands to her feet. Her lips are parted, her eyes wide: she sways a little. Then a soft rapturous cry breaks from her, there is a simultaneous movement on his part and on hers; and then--she is in his arms.

For a few moments speech is impossible to them: there seems nothing in the wide world but he to her, and she to him.

Then he lifts her face, and looks at her long and eagerly.

"Yes, I have found you again, my love,--_at last_," he says.

"Ah! how long it has seemed!" whispers she, with tears in her eyes.

The old ladies might have been in the next county, so wrapt are they in their happy meeting. Their hearts are beating in unison; their souls are in their eyes. She has reached her home,--his breast,--and has laid her heart on his. The moment is perfect, and as near heaven as we poor mortals can attain until kindly death comes to our aid.

It is but a little moment, however. It pa.s.ses, and recollection returns.

Monica, raising her head, sees the two Misses Blake standing side by side, with folded, nerveless hands, and fixed eyes, and horror-stricken faces. Shrinking still closer to her lover, Monica regards them with a troubled conscience and with growing fear. She is at last discovered, and her sin is beyond redemption.

She trembles in Desmond's arms, and pales visibly. But the frantic beating of her heart against his renders him strong and bold. He throws up his head, with the action of one determined to fight to the death.

No one shall ever take her from him. He is only too anxious to enter the lists and do battle for his love.

And then, as his eyes light upon his foes, his spirit dies. Poor old ladies, so stupefied, so stricken! are they not already conquered?

Looking at the frail front they present, he feels his weapons must be blunted in this fight, his gloves anything but steel.

A terrible silence fills the room,--a silence that grows almost unbearable, until at length it is broken by Miss Priscilla. Her voice is low, and hushed and broken.

"Monica, why did you deceive us?" she says.

There is reproach, agonized disappointment, in her tone, but no anger.

To these poor old women the moment is tragical. The child of their last years--the one thing they had held most dear and sacred--has proved unworthy, has linked herself with the opposition, has entered the lists of the enemy. They are quite calm, though trembling. Their grief is too great for tears. But they stand together, and there is a lost and heart-broken look about them.

Monica, seeing it, breaks away from her lover's restraining arms, and, running to Miss Priscilla, falls down on her knees before her, and, clasping her waist with her soft, white arms, bursts into bitter tears.

She clings to Miss Priscilla; but the old lady, though her distress is very apparent, stands proudly erect, and looks not at her, but at Desmond. The tears gather slowly in her eyes--tears come ever slowly to those whose youth lies far behind--and fall upon the repentant sunny head; but the owner shows no sign of forgiveness; yet I think she would have dearly liked to take the sweet sinner in her arms, to comfort and forgive her, but for the pride and wounded feeling that overmastered her.

"Your presence here, sir, is an insult," she says to Desmond, meaning to be stern; but her grief has washed away the incivility of her little speech and has left it only vaguely reproachful. Desmond lowers his head before her gaze, and refrains from answer or explanation. A great sorrow for the defencelessness of _their_ sorrow has arisen in his breast for these old aunts, and killed all meaner thoughts. I think he would have felt a degree of relief if they had both fallen upon him, and said hard things to him, and so revenged themselves in part.

Monica is sobbing bitterly. Not able to endure her grief, Desmond, going even to the feet of Miss Priscilla, tries to raise her from the ground. But she clings even more closely to Miss Priscilla, and so mutely refuses to go to him.

A pang, a sudden thought, shoots through him, and renders him desperate.

Will they be bad to his poor little girl when he is gone? will they scold her?

"Oh, madam," he says to Miss Priscilla, with a break in his voice, "_try_ to forgive her; be gentle with her. It was all my fault,--mine entirely. I loved her, and when she refused to hear me plead my cause, and shrunk from me because of that unhappy division that separates my family from yours, and because of her reverence for your wishes, I still urged her, and induced her to meet me secretly."

"You did an evil deed, sir," says Miss Priscilla.

"I acknowledge it. I am altogether to blame," says Desmond, hastily.

"She has had nothing to do with it. Do not, I beseech you, say anything to her when I am gone that may augment her self-reproach." He looks with appealing eyes at Miss Blake, his hand on Monica's shoulder, who has her face hidden in a fold of her aunt's gown.

"Sir," says Miss Priscilla, drawing herself up, with a touch of old-world grandeur in her manner, but a sad tremulousness in her tone, "my niece has been with us now for some time, and we have dared to hope she has been treated in accordance with the great love we feel for her."

"The _great_ love," echoes Miss Penelope, gently. Though deeply distressed, both old ladies are conscious of a subdued admiration for the young man, because of the tenderness of his fears for his beloved.

"But if," says Miss Priscilla, with a mournful glance at the pretty bowed head--"if _she_ thinks we have failed in our love towards her, as indeed it seems it may be, by your finding it necessary to ask us to treat her with kindness in this trouble,--we can only say to her that we regret,--that we----" Here she breaks down, and covers her sad old face with her trembling hands.

Monica springs to her feet.

"Oh, auntie!" she says, a world of love and reproach and penitence in her voice. She throws her arms round her aunt's neck; and, Miss Priscilla clasping her in turn, somehow in one moment the crime is condoned, and youth and age are met in a fond embrace.

"Go, sir," says Miss Priscilla, presently, without lifting her eyes.

There is so much gentleness in her tone that the young man is emboldened to ask a question.

"You will permit me to come to-morrow, to--to--plead my cause?" he says, anxiously.

Miss Priscilla hesitates, and a pang of apprehension rushes through his heart. He is almost in despair, when Miss Penelope's voice breaks the oppressive silence.

"Yes. Come to-morrow," she says, pressing Miss Priscilla's arm. "To-day we are too tired, too upset. To-morrow let it be."

"I thank you madam," says Desmond, humbly; and then he turns to go, but still lingers, with grieved eyes fixed on Monica.

"Monica, you will give me one parting word?" he says, at last, as though the pet.i.tion is wrung from him.

Still holding Miss Priscilla's hand, she turns to him, and, raising her other arm, places it softly round his neck. Holding them both thus, she seems the embodiment of the spirit that must in the end unite them. Her position compels her to throw back her head a little, and she smiles at him, a sad little smile, but bright with love and trust.

"Not a _parting_ word," she says, with a sweetness so grave as to be almost solemn.

"You will be true to me?" says Desmond, reckless of listeners. He has his arms round her, and is waiting for her answer with a pale, earnest face. Something in the whole scene touches the two kindly old maids with a sense of tender reverence.

"Until my death," says the girl, with slow distinctness, laying her head against the gray sleeve of his coat.

A great wave of color--born of emotion and love that is stronger than the grave--sweeps over his face. He stoops and lays his lips on hers.

When he is gone, Monica turns suddenly upon Miss Priscilla.

"Do not say a word to me!" she cries, feverishly; "I could not bear it--_now_. I may have done wrong, but I am not sorry for it. I love him.

That should explain everything to you; it means _all_ to me! Nothing can alter that! And I will have nothing said,--nothing; and----"

"Nothing shall be said, dear child," says Miss Penelope, gently.

"Everything shall be as you wish with regard to us. Can you not trust us to spare you where we _can_?"

"I am ungrateful. I must go and think it all out," says Monica, stoutly, pressing her hands against her head. She turns away. A little cry breaks from Miss Priscilla.

"Oh! not without kissing us _too_, Monica!" she says, in a broken voice, holding out her arms to her niece. Monica throws herself into them.