Chapter 16

How the afternoon at Moyne proves a great success--How Olga Bohun is led into a half confession, and how Monica, growing restless, seeks a dubious solitude.

"It is quite the loveliest old place in the world!" says Mrs. Bohun, in her soft plaintive voice, speaking very enthusiastically. "We ought to be more than grateful to you, dear Miss Blake, for letting us see it."

Miss Priscilla reddens with suppressed satisfaction but says,--

"Tut tut, my dear! It is only a funny old-fashioned spot, after all," in quite an off-hand manner.

It is Friday,--_the_ Friday,--as the Misses Blake have been thinking of it for days, in fear and trembling, as being the date of their first hospitable venture for many years.

All the Aghyohillbeg party, and the men from Clonbree Barracks, and some other neighbors, are strolling through the sweet antiquated gardens of Moyne, hedged with yews fantastically cut. The roses, white and red and yellow, are nodding their heads lazily, bowing and courtesying to the passing breeze. The stocks and mignonette are filling the air with perfume. Tall lilies are smiling from distant corners, and the little merry burn, tumbling over its gray boulders through the garden, is singing a loud and happy song, in which the birds in the trees above join heartily.

The lazy hum of many insects makes one feel even more perceptibly how drowsy-sweet is all the summer air.

Mrs. Bohun has now flitted away with Monica, who in her white gown looks the prettiest flower of all, in this "wilderness of sweets," with the tall, infatuated Ryde and handsome young Ronayne in their train. Mrs. Bohun, who is in one of her most mischievous moods to-day, has taken it into her head to snub Lord Rossmoyne and be all that is of the sweetest to Ulic Ronayne, a proceeding her cousin, Mrs. Herrick, regards with dismay.

Not so, however, does Bella Fitzgerald regard it. She, tall, and with a would-be stately air, walks through the grounds at Lord Rossmoyne's side, to whom she has attached herself, and who, _faute de mieux_, makes himself as agreeable as he can to her, considering how he is inwardly raging at what he is pleased to term Olga's disgraceful behavior.

Miss Priscilla has now been seized upon by Madam O'Connor and carried off for a private confab.

"And you really _must_ let her come to us for a week, my dear," says Madam O'Connor, in her fine rich brogue. "Yes, now, really I want her. It will be quite a favor. I can't withstand a pretty face, as you well know 'tis a weakness of mine, my dear, and she is really a pearl. Olga Bohun is talking of getting up tableaux or some such nonsense, and she wants your pretty child to help us."

"I should like her to go to you. It is very kind of you," says Miss Priscilla, but with unmistakable hesitation.

"Now, what is it? Out with it, Priscilla!" says Madam O'Connor, bluntly.

Miss Priscilla struggles with herself for yet another minute, and then says, quickly,--

"That young man Desmond,--will _he_ be staying in your house?"

"Not if you object, my dear," says Mrs. O'Connor, kindly; "though I do think it is a pity to thwart that affair. He is as nice and as pleasant a young fellow as I know, and would make a jewel of a husband; and money--say what you like, my dear Priscilla--is always something. It ranks higher than _revenge_."

"There is no revenge. It is only a just resentment."

"Well, I'll call it by any name you like, my dear, but I must say----"

"I must beg, Gertrude, you will not discuss this unhappy subject," says Miss Priscilla, with some agitation.

"Well, I won't, there. Then let it lie," says Madam O'Connor, good-humoredly. "And tell me, now, if I come over to fetch Monica on Monday, will she be ready for me?"

"Quite ready. But we have not consulted her yet," says Miss Priscilla, clinging to a broken reed.

"Olga is talking to her about it. And, if she's the girl she _looks_, she'll be glad of a change, and the chance of a sweetheart," says Madam O'Connor, gayly.

* * * * *

"What lovely lilies!" says Mrs. Bohun, standing before a tall white group.

"Oh, don't!" says Owen Kelly, who has joined her and Monica. "Whenever I hear a lily mentioned I think of Oscar Wilde, and it hurts very much."

"I like Oscar Wilde. He is quite nice, and _very_ amusing," says Olga.

"I wonder if I could make my hair grow," says Mr. Kelly, meditatively. "He's been very clever about his; but I suppose somebody taught him."

"Well, I think long hair is dirty," says Mrs. Bohun, with an abstracted glance at Ronayne's lightly-shaven head.

Then, as though tired of her sweet _role_ and of its object (Ronayne) and everything, she turns capriciously aside, and, motioning away the men with her hand and a small frown, sits down at Hermia Herrick's feet and plucks idly at the grasses near her.

"So we are dismissed," says Kelly, shrugging his shoulders. Monica has disappeared long ago with the devoted Ryde. "Your queen has her tempers, Ronayne."

"There are few things so cloying as perfection," says Ronayne, loyally.

"I entirely agree with you,--so much so that I hope Providence will send me an ugly wife. She--I beg your pardon--Mrs. Bohun does pretty much what she likes with you, doesn't she?"

"Altogether what she likes. She's been doing it for so long now that I suppose she'll go on to the end of the chapter. I hope it will be a long one. Do you know," says the young man, with a rather sad little laugh, "it sounds of course rather a poor thing to say, but I really think it makes me _happy_, being done what she likes with?"

"It is only to oblige a friend that I should seek to understand such a hopelessly involved sentence as that," says Mr. Kelly, wearily. "But I have managed it. You're as bad a case as ever I came across, Ronayne, and I pity you. But, 'pon my soul, I respect you too," with a flash of admiration: "there is nothing like being thoroughly in earnest. And so I wish you luck in your wooing."

"You're a very good fellow, Kelly," says Ronayne gratefully.

In the mean time, Olga, tiring of tearing her grasses to pieces, looks up at Hermia.

"How silent you are!" she says.

"I thought that was what you wanted,--silence. You have been talking all day. And, besides, if I speak at all, it will be only to condemn."

"Nevertheless speak. Anything is better than this ghastly quiet; and, besides, frankly, I need not mind you, you know."

"You are flirting disgracefully with that Ronayne boy."

"What harm, if he _is_ a boy?"

"He is not such a boy as all that comes to; and, if you don't _mean_ it, you are overkind to him."

"He is my baby," says Olga, with a little laugh; "I often tell him so. Why should I _not_ be kind to him?"

"Oh, if you are _bent_ on it."

"I am bent on nothing. You do run away so with things!"

"I think you might do better."

"I'm not going to do anything," says the widow. She throws off her hat, and ruffles up all her pretty pale gold hair with impatient fingers.

"Oh! if you can _assure_ me of that!"

"I don't want to assure you of anything."

"So I thought. That is why I say you might do better."

"I might do worse, too."

"Perhaps. But still I cannot forget there was Wolverhampton last year. A title is not to be despised; and he was devoted to you, and would, I think, have made a good husband."

"I daresay. He was fool enough for anything. And I liked him, rather; but there was something in him--wasn't there, now, Hermia?--something positively enraging at times."

"I suppose, then, your fancy for young Ronayne arises from the fact that there is _nothing_ in him," says Hermia, maliciously: "that's his charm, is it?"

Mrs. Bohun laughs.

"I don't suppose there is very much in him," she says: "that in itself is such a relief. Wolverhampton was so overpowering about those hydraulics. Ulic isn't a savant, certainly, and I don't think he will ever set the Liffey afire, but he is 'pleasant too to think on.' Now, mind you, I don't believe I care a pin about Ulic Ronayne,--he is younger than I am, for one thing,--but still I don't care to hear him abused."

"I am not abusing him," says Hermia. "It was you said he was no savant, and would be unlikely to set the Liffey afire."

"For which we should be devoutly grateful," says Olga, frivolously. "Consider, if he _could_, what the consequences would be, both to life and property. Poor young man! I really think Government ought to give him a pension because he _can't_."

"And what about all the other young men?" asks Hermia. And then she yawns.

Here Monica--who has been absent with Mr. Ryde for the best part of an hour--comes up to them, and presently Terence, with the Fitzgeralds, and Miss Priscilla and Lord Rossmoyne.

"I heard a story yesterday I want to tell you," says Terence, gayly, singling out Miss Fitzgerald and Olga, and sinking upon the grass at the former's feet. He is such a handsome merry boy that he is a favorite with all the women. Miss Priscilla stands near him; the others are all conversing together about the coming plays at Aghyohillbeg.

"It is about the curate," says Terence, gleefully. "You know, he is awful spoons on the ugliest French girl, and the other day he wanted to run up to Dublin to get her a ring, or something, but----"

"Now, Terence, dear, surely that is not the way to pronounce that word," says Miss Priscilla, anxiously; "such a vulgar pronounciation--'bu-ut.' How you drawled it! How ugly it sounds--'bu-ut!' Now put your lips together like mine, so, and say 'but,' _shortly_. Now begin your story again, and tell it nicely."

Terence begins again,--_very_ good humoredly, thinks Olga,--and has almost reached the point, when Miss Priscilla breaks in again:

"Now, not so fast, my dear Terence. I really cannot follow you at all. I don't even understand what you are at. Gently, my dear boy. Now begin it all over again, and be more explicit."

But the fun is all out of Terence by this time, though Olga is so convulsed with laughter that it might have been the best story on record, which somewhat astonishes though it consoles Terence, as when his funny incident is related in a carefully modulated voice, and with a painful precision, it strikes even him as being hopelessly uninteresting. However, Mrs. Bohun certainly enjoys it,--or something else, perhaps: fortunately, it never occurs to Terry to ponder on the "something else."

"Hermia, Olga, come now, my dears. You can't stay here for _ever_, you know," cries Madam O'Connor's loud but cheery voice. "It is nearly seven. Come, I tell you, or the Misses Blake, our good friends here, will think we mean to take up our residence at Moyne for good."

"Oh, now, Gertrude!" says Miss Priscilla, much shocked. But Madam O'Connor only laughs heartily, and gives her a little smart blow on the shoulder with her fan. Olga laughs too, gayly, and Hermia lets her lips part with one of her rare but perfect smiles. If she likes any one besides Olga and her children, it is bluff and blunt old Gertrude O'Connor.

One by one they all walk away, and presently Moyne is lying in the dying sunshine, in all its usual quietude, with never a sound to disturb the calm of coming eve but the light rustling of the rising breeze among the ivy-leaves that are clambering up its ancient walls.

Kit and Terry are indoors, laughing merrily over the day, and congratulating themselves upon the success it has certainly been.

"Yes. I do think, Penelope, they all enjoyed themselves," says Miss Priscilla, in high glee; "and your claret-cup, my dear, was superb."

But Monica has stolen away from them all. The strange restlessness that has lain upon her all day is asserting itself with cruel vigor, and drives her forth into the shadows of the coming night.

All day long she has struggled bravely against it; but, now that the enforced necessity for liveliness is at an end, she grows dreamy, _distraite_, and feels an intense longing for solitude and air.

Again she walks through the now deserted garden, where the flowers, "earth's loveliest," are drooping their sweet heads to seek their happy slumbers. Past them she goes with lowered head and thoughts engrossed, and so over the lawn into the wood beyond.

Here Coole and Moyne are connected by a high green bank, that in early spring is studded and diamonded with primroses and now is gay with ferns. Not until she has reached this boundary does she remember how far she has come.

She climbs the bank, and gazes with an ever-growing longing at the cool shade in the forbidden land, at the tall, stately trees, and the foxgloves nodding drowsily.

It is a perfect evening, and as yet the god of day--great Sol--is riding the heavens with triumphant mirth, as though reckless of the death that draweth nigh. Shall he not rise again to-morrow morn in all his awful majesty, and so defy grim Mars? It is, indeed, one of those hours when heaven seems nearest earth, "as when warm sunshine thrills wood-glooms to gold," and "righteousness and peace have kissed each other," and Nature, tender mother, smiles, and all the forest deeps are by "a tender whisper pierced."

Conscience forbidding her, she abstains from entering those coveted woods, and, with a sigh, seats herself upon the top of the green bank.

"Monica!" says a voice close to her, yet not close to her,--mysteriously, far up in mid-air, right over her head. She starts! Is the great wood peopled with satyrs, ouphs, or dryads?