Chapter 18

How, after much discussion, the devoted, if mistaken, adherents of Thalia gain the day--and how, for once in his life, Owen Kelly feels melancholy that is not assumed.

"I wish you would all attend," says Olga Bohun, just a little impatiently, looking round upon the assembled group, with brows uplifted and the point of a pencil thrust between her rose-red lips.

"Thrice-blessed pencil!" murmurs Mr. Kelly, in a _very_ stage whisper. "Man is the superior being, yet he would not be permitted to occupy so exalted a position. Are you a stone, Ronayne, that you can regard the situation with such an insensate face?" Mr. Ronayne is at this moment gazing at Mrs. Bohun with all his heart in his eyes. He starts and colors. "I cannot help thinking of that dear little song about the innocent daisy," goes on Mr. Kelly, with a rapt expression. "But I'd 'choose to be a _pencil_, if I might be a flower.'"

"Now _do_ let us decide upon something," says Olga, taking no heed of this sally, and frowning down the smile that is fighting for mastery.

"Yes; now you are all to decide upon something at once," says Mr. Kelly, gloomily. "There is a difficulty about the right way to begin it, but it must be done; Mrs. Bohun says so. There is to be no deception. I shall say one, two, three, and away, and then every one must have decided: the defaulter will be spurned from the gates. Now, one, two----Desmond," sternly "you are not deciding!"

"I am, indeed," says Desmond, most untruthfully. He is lying on the grass at Monica's feet, and is playing idly with her huge white fan.

"You are not doing it properly. I daresay Miss Beresford is making you uncomfortable; and I am sure you are trying to break her fan. Come over here and sit by me, and you will be much happier."

"Penance is good for the soul. I shall stay here," says Desmond.

"If we mean to get up tableaux, we certainly ought to set about them at once," says Herrick, indolently.

"There doesn't seem to be any work in anybody," says Olga, in despair.

"Try me," says Lord Rossmoyne, bending over her chair. He has only just come, and his arrival has been unannounced.

"Ah! _thank_ you!"--with a brilliant smile. "Now you _do_ look like business."

It is Monday, and four o'clock. Aghyohillbeg lying basking in the sunshine is looking its loveliest,--which is saying a great deal. The heat is so intense on this sweet July day that every one has deserted the house and come out to find some air,--a difficulty. They have tried the grass terraces, in vain, and now have congregated beneath a giant fir, and are, comparatively speaking, cool.

Just before luncheon Madam O'Connor brought Monica home in triumph with her from Moyne, to find Desmond, handsome and happy, on her doorstep, waiting with calm certainty an invitation to that meal. He got it, and to dinner likewise.

"We have set our hearts on tableaux, but it is _so_ difficult to think of any scene fresh and unhackneyed," says Olga, gazing plaintively into Lord Rossmoyne's sympathetic face.

"Don't give way," says Mr. Kelly, tenderly. "It must be a poor intellect that couldn't rise superior to such a demand as that. Given one minute, I believe even I could produce an idea as novel as it would be brilliant."

"You shall have your minute," says Olga, pulling out her watch. "Now--begin----"

"Time's up," she says, presently, when sixty seconds have honestly expired.

"You might have said that thirty seconds ago, and I should not have objected," says Mr. Kelly, with an assured smile.

"And your idea."

"_The Huguenots!_"

Need I say that every one is exceedingly angry?

"Ever heard it before?" asks Mr. Kelly, with aggressive insolence; which question, being considered as adding insult to injury, is treated with silent contempt.

"I told you it was not to be done," says Olga, petulantly addressing everybody generally.

"I can't agree with you. I see no reason why it should fall to the ground," says Miss Fitzgerald, warmly, who is determined to show herself off in a gown that has done duty for "Madame Favart," and the "Bohemian Girl," and "Maritana," many a time and oft.

"I have another idea," says Mr. Kelly, at this opportune moment.

"If it is as useful as your first, you may keep it," says Olga, with pardonable indignation.

"I am misunderstood," says Mr. Kelly, mournfully, but with dignity. "I shall write to Miss Montgomery and ask her to make another pathetic tale about me. As you are bent on trampling upon an unknown genius,--poor but proud--I shall _not_ make you acquainted with this last beautiful thought which I have evolved from my inner consciousness."

"Don't say that! _do_ tell it to us," says Monica, eagerly, and in perfect good faith. She knows less of him than the others, and may therefore be excused for still believing in him.

"Thank you, Miss Beresford. _You_ can soar above a mean desire to crush a rising power. You have read, of course, that popular poem by our poet-laureate, called 'Enid.'"

"Yes," says Monica, staring at him.

"I mean the poem in which he has so faithfully depicted the way in which two escaped lunatics would be sure to behave if left to their own devices. Considered as a warning to us to keep bolts and bars on Colney Hatch and Hanwell, it may be regarded as a delicate attention. Dear Tennyson! he certainly is a public benefactor. There is a scene in that remarkable poem which I think might suit us. You remember where, after much wild careering in the foreground, the principal idiots decide upon riding home together, pillion fashion?"

"I--I think so," says Monica, who plainly doesn't, being much confused.

"'Then on his foot she sat her own and climbed,'--and then she threw her arms round him in a most unmaidenly fashion, if I recollect aright; but of course mad people _will_ be vehement, poor souls; they can't help it. Now, supposing we adopted that scene, wouldn't it be effective? One of Madam O'Connor's big carriage-horses, if brought forward,--I mean the one that kicked over the traces, yesterday,--would, I firmly believe, create quite a sensation, and in all probability bring down the house."

"The stage, certainly," says Desmond.

"Ah! you approve of it," says Kelly, with suspicious gratitude. "Then let us arrange it at once. Miss Beresford might throw her arms round Ryde, for example: that would be charming."

Desmond looking at this moment as if he would willingly murder him, Mr. Kelly is apparently satisfied, and sinks to rest with his head upon his arm once more. No one else has heard the suggestion.

"I think you might help me, instead of giving voice to insane propositions," says Olga, reproachfully, turning her eyes upon Mr. Kelly's bowed form,--he is lying prostrate on the grass,--which is shaking in a palsied fashion. "I really _did_ believe in _you_," she says, whereupon the young man, springing to his feet, flings his arms wide, and appeals in an impassioned manner to an unprejudiced public as to whether he has not been racking his brain in her service for the last half-hour.

"Then I wish you would go and rack it in somebody else's service," says Mrs. Bohun, ungratefully.

"Hear her!" says Mr. Kelly, gazing slowly round him. "She still persists in the unseemly abuse. She is bent on breaking my heart and driving sleep from mine eyelids. It is ungenerous, the more so that she knows I have not the courage to tear myself from her beloved presence. You, Ronayne, and you, Rossmoyne, can sympathize with me:

"'In durance vile here must I wake and weep, And all my frowzy couch in sorrow steep.'

Fancy a frowzy couch saturated with tears! you know," reproachfully to Olga, "_you_ wouldn't like to have to lie on it."

"Oh, do come and sit down here near me, and be silent," says Olga, in desperation.

"Why not have a play?" says Captain Cobbett, who with Mr. Ryde has driven over from Clonbree.

"'The play's the thing,'" says Brian Desmond, lazily; "but when you are about it, make it a farce."

"Oh, _no_!" says Miss Fitzgerald, with a horrified gesture; "_anything_ but that! Why not let us try one of the good old comedies?--'The School for Scandal,' for example?"

"_What!_" says Mr. Kelly, very weakly. He is plainly quite overcome by this suggestion.

"Well, why not?" demands the fair Bella, with just a _soupcon_ of asperity in her tone,--as much as she ever allows herself when in the society of men. She makes up for this abstinence by bestowing a liberal share of it upon her maid and her mother.

"It's--it's such a naughty, naughty piece," says Mr. Kelly, bashfully, beating an honorable retreat from his first meaning.

"Nonsense! One can strike out anything distasteful."

"Shades of Farren--and----Who would be Lady Teazle?" says Olga.

"I would," says Bella, modestly.

"That is more than good of you," says Olga, casting a curious glance at her from under her long lashes. "But I thought, perhaps----You, Hermia, would you not undertake it? You know, last season, they said you were----"

"No, dear, thanks. No, _indeed_," with emphasis.

"Cobbett does Joseph Surface to perfection," breaks in Mr. Ryde, enthusiastically.

"Oh, I say now, Ryde! Come, you know, this is hardly fair," says the little captain, coyly, who is looking particularly pinched and dried to-day, in spite of the hot sun. There is a satisfied smirk upon his pale lips, and a poor attempt at self-depreciation about his whole manner.

"You know you took 'em by storm at Portsmouth, last year,--made 'em laugh like fun. You should see him," persists Ryde, addressing everybody generally.

"Perhaps you mean the part of Charles Surface," says Ronayne, in some surprise.

"No. Joseph: the sly one you know," says Ryde chuckling over some recollection.

"Well, it never occurred to me that Joseph's part might be termed a _funny_ one," says Mr. Kelly, mildly; "but that shows how ignorant all we Irish are. It will be very kind of you, Cobbett, to enlighten us,--to show us something _good_, in fact."

"Really, you know, you flatter me absurdly," says Cobbett, the self-depreciation fainter, the smirk broader.

Lord Rossmoyne, whose good temper is not his strong point, glances angrily at him, smothers an explosive speech, and walks away with a sneer.

"And Sir Peter,--who will kindly undertake Sir Peter?" asks Olga, with a smile that is faintly sarcastic. "Will you, Owen?" to Mr. Kelly.

"Don't ask me. I could not act with Cobbett and Miss Fitzgerald. I mean, I should only disgrace them," says Kelly, who is a member of a famous dramatic club in Dublin, and who has had two offers from London managers to tread the boards. "I feel I'm not up to it, indeed."

"I suspect you are not," says Hermia Herrick, with a sudden smile that lights up all her cold impassive face. Kelly, catching it, crawls lazily over to her, along the grass, Indian fashion, and finding a fold of her gown lays his arm on it, and his head on his arm, and relapses into silence.

"Ryde has done it," says Captain Cobbett.

"Indeed!" says Olga, raising questioning eyes to the big marine standing behind Monica's chair.

"Ye--es. We--er--do a good deal of that sort of thing in _our_ country," says Ryde, with conscious worth. "I have done Sir Peter once or twice; and people have been good enough not to--" with a little laugh--"_hiss_ me. I have a style of my own; but--er----" with an encouraging glance at the other men, "I daresay there are many here who could do it as I do it."

"Not _one_, I am convinced," says Desmond, promptly; and Monica laughs softly.

"We must think it over. I don't believe anything so important could be got up without deep deliberation----" Olga is beginning, when Kelly, by a movement of the hand, stops her.

"Do let it go on to its bitter end," he says, in a whisper, with most unusual animation for him. "Mrs. Herrick, help me."

"Why not, Olga?" says Hermia, in a low tone. "The principal characters are willing; we have not had a real laugh for some time: why throw away such a _perfect_ chance?"

"Oh! _that_----" says Olga.

Here a slight diversion is caused by the appearance of a footman, tea tray, a boy, a gypsy table, a maid, a good deal of fruit, maraschino, brandy, soda, _and_ Madam O'Connor. The latter, to tell the truth, has been having a siesta in the privacy of her own room, and has now come down, like a giant refreshed, to see how her guests are getting on.

"Well, I hope you're all happy," she says, jovially.

"We are mad with perplexity," says Olga.

"What's the matter, then, darling?" says Madam. "Hermia, like a good child, go and pour out the tea."

"I'll tell you all about it," says Brian, who is a special favorite of Madam O'Connor's, coming over to her and stopping behind her chair to whisper into her ear.

Whatever he says makes her laugh immoderately. It is easy to bring smiles to her lips at any time,--her heart having kept at a standstill whilst her body grew old,--but now she seems particularly fetched.

"Yes, yes, my dear Olga, let them have their own way," she says merrily.

"Very good. Let us consider it settled," says Mrs. Bohun. "But I _should_ like some tableaux afterwards, as a wind-up."

"Yes, certainly," says Ronayne. "What do you think, Madam?"

"I have set my mind on them," says his old hostess, gayly. "You are such a handsome boy, Ulic, that I'm bent on seeing you in fancy clothes; and so is somebody else, I daresay. Look at the children, how they steal towards us; were there ever such demure little mice? Come here, Georgie, my son, I have peaches and pretty things for you."

The kind old soul holds out her arms to two beautiful children, a boy and a girl, who are coming slowly, shyly towards her. They are so like Hermia Herrick as to be unmistakably hers. The boy, coming straight to Madame O'Connor, climbs up on her lap and lays his bonny cheek against hers; but the girl, running to her mother, who is busy over the tea-tray, nestles close to her.

"Gently, my soul," say Hermia, in a soft whisper. Though she still calmly pours out the tea, with Kelly beside her, she lets the unoccupied hand fall, to mingle with the golden tresses of the child. As her hand meets the little sunny head, a marvellous sweetness creeps into her face and transfixes it to a heavenly beauty. Kelly, watching her, marks the change.

Going round to the child, he would have taken her in his arms,--as is his habit with most children, being a special favorite in every nursery; but this little dame, drawing back from him, repels him coldly. Then, as though fearing herself ungracious, she slowly extends to him a tiny, friendly hand, which he accepts. The likeness between this grave baby and her graver mother is so remarkable as to be almost ludicrous.

"I think you haven't given Mr. Kelly even one kiss to-day," says her mother, smiling faintly, and pressing the child closer to her. "She is a cold little thing, is she not?"

"I suppose she inherits it," says Owen Kelly, without lifting his eyes from the child's fair face.

Mrs. Herrick colors slightly.

"Will you let me get you some tea, Fay?" says Mr. Kelly, addressing the child almost anxiously.

"No, thank you," says the fairy, sweetly but decidedly. "My mammy will give me half hers. I do not like any other tea."

"I am not in favor to-day," says Kelly, drawing back and shrugging his shoulders slightly, but looking distinctly disappointed. It may be the child sees this, because she comes impulsively forward, and, standing on tiptoe before him, holds her arms upwards towards his neck.

"I want to kiss you now," she says, solemnly, when he has taken her into his embrace. "But no one else. I only want to kiss _you_ sometimes--and _always_ mamma."

"I am content to be second where mamma is first. I am glad you place me with her in your mind. I should like to be always with mamma," says Kelly. He laughs a little, and kisses the child again, and places her gently upon the ground, and then he glances at Hermia. But her face is impassive as usual. No faintest tinge deepens the ordinary pallor of her cheeks. She has the sugar tongs poised in the air, and is apparently sunk in abstruse meditation.

"Now, I wonder who takes sugar and who doesn't," she says, wrinkling up her pretty brows in profound thought. "I have been here a month, yet cannot yet be sure. Mr. Kelly, you must call some one else to our assistance to take round the sugar, as you can't do everything."

"I can do _nothing_," says Kelly, in a low tone, after which he turns away and calls Brian Desmond to come to him.