Chapter 24

How Madam O'Connor tells how lovers throve in the good old days when she was young; and Brian Desmond thrives with his love in these our days, when he and she are young.

The day is near; the darkest hour that presages the dawn has come, and still every one is dancing, and talking, and laughing, and some are alluring, by the aid of smiles and waving fans, the hearts of men.

Kit Beresford, in spite of her youth and her closely-cropped head,--which, after all is adorable in many ways,--has secured, all to her own bow, a young man from the Skillereen Barracks (a meagre town to the west of Rossmoyne). He is a _very_ young, young man, and is by this time quite _bon comarade_ with the sedate Kit, who is especially lenient with his shortcomings, and treats him as though he were nearly as old as herself.

Monica is dancing with Mr. Ryde. To do him justice, he dances very well; but whether Monica is dissatisfied with him, or whether she is tenderly regretful of the fact that at this moment she might just as well--or rather better--be dancing with another, I cannot say; but certainly her fair face is clothed with a pensive expression that heightens its beauty in a considerable degree.

"Look at that girl of Priscilla Blake's," says Madam O'Connor, suddenly, who is standing at the head of the room, surrounded, as usual, by young men. "Look at her. Was there ever such a picture? She is like a martyr at the stake. That intense expression suits her."

Brian Desmond flushes a little, and Kelly comes to the rescue.

"A martyr?" he says. "I don't think Ryde would be obliged to you if he heard you. I should name him as the martyr, if I were you. Just see how hopelessly silly--I mean, sentimental--he looks."

"Yet I think she fancies him," says Lord Rossmoyne, who is one of those men who are altogether good, respectable, and dense.

"Nonsense!" says Madam O'Connor, indignantly. "What on earth would she fancy that jackanapes for, when there are good men and true waiting for her round every corner?"

As she says this, she glances whole volumes of encouragement at Desmond, who, however, is so depressed by the fact that Monica has danced five times with Ryde, and is now dancing with him again, that he gives her no returning glance.

At this apparent coldness on his part, the blood of all the kings of Munster awakes in Madam O'Connor's breast.

"'Pon my conscience," she says, "I wouldn't give a good farthing for the lot of you, to let that girl go by! She came into Rossmoyne on the top of a hay-cart, I hear,--more luck to her, say I; for it shows the pluck in her, and the want of the sneaking fear of what he and she will say (more especially _she_) that spoils half our women. When I was her age I'd have done it myself. Rossmoyne, get out of that, till I get another look at her. I like her face. It does me good. It is so full of life _et le beaute du diable_," says Madame O'Connor, who speaks French like a native, and, be it understood, Irish too.

"_We_ like to look at her, too," says Owen Kelly.

"To look, indeed! That would be thought poor comfort in my days when a pretty woman was in question, and men were men!" says Madam, with considerable spirit. "If I were a young fellow, now, 'tis in the twinkling of an eye I'd have her from under her aunt's nose and away in a coach and four."

"The sole thing that prevents our _all_ eloping with Miss Beresford on the spot is--is--the difficulty of finding the coach and four and the blacksmith," says Mr. Kelly, with even a denser gloom upon his face than usual. Indeed, he now appears almost on the verge of tears.

"We never lost time speculating on ways and means in _those_ days," says Madame O'Connor, throwing up her head. "Whoo! Times are changed indeed since my grandfather played old Harry with the countrymen and my grandmother's father by running away with her without a word to any one, after a big ball at my great grandmother's, and that, too, when she was guarded as if she was the princess royal herself and had every man in the South on his knees to her."

"But how did he manage it?" says Desmond, laughing.

"Faith, by making the old gentleman my great-grandfather as drunk as a fiddler, on drugged potheen," says Madam O'Connor, proudly. "The butler and he did it between them; but it was as near being murder as anything you like, because they put so much of the narcotic into the whiskey that the old man didn't come to himself for three days. That's the sort of thing for _me_," says Madam, with a little flourish of her shapely hand.

"So it would be for me, too," says Kelly, mournfully. "But there's no one good enough to risk my neck for, now you have refused to have anything to do with me."

"Get along with you, you wicked boy, making fun of an old woman!" says Madam, with her gay, musical laugh. "Though," with a touch of pride, "I won't deny but I led the lads a fine dance when I was the age of that pretty child yonder."

"I wonder you aren't ashamed when you think of all the mischief you did," says Desmond, who delights in her.

"Divil a bit!" says Madam O'Connor.

"Still, I really think Ryde affects her," says Rossmoyne, who, being a dull man, has clung to the first topic promulgated.

"That's nothing, so long as she doesn't affect him," says Kelly, somewhat sharply.

"But perhaps she does; and I daresay he has money. Those English fellows generally have a reversion somewhere."

"Not a penny," says Mr. Kelly. "And, whether or no, I don't believe she would look at him."

"Not she," says Madam O'Connor.

"I don't know that. And, even allowing what you say to be true, women are not always to be won by wealth" (with a faint sigh), "and he is a very good-looking fellow."

"Is he?" says Desmond, speaking with an effort. "If flesh counts, of course he is. 'Let me have men about me that are fat; sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights.' To look at Ryde, one would fancy he slept well, not only by night but by day."

"I feel as if I was going to be sorry for Ryde presently," says Mr. Kelly.

"Well, he's not the man for Monica," says Madam O'Connor, with conviction. "See how sorrow grows upon her lovely face. For shame! go and release her, some one, from her durance vile. Take heart of grace, go in boldly, and win her, against all odds."

"But if she will not be won?" says Desmond, smiling, but yet with an anxious expression.

"'That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man if with his tongue he cannot win a woman,'" quotes Madam, in a low voice, turning to Desmond with a broad smile of the liveliest encouragement; "and as for you, Desmond, why, if I were a girl, I'd be won by yours at once."

Desmond laughs.

"I'm sorry I'm beneath your notice now."

"Where's your uncle? Couldn't even my letter coax him here to-night?"

"Not even that. He has gone nowhere now for so many years that I think he is afraid to venture."

"Tut!" says Madam, impatiently; "because _he_ jilted a woman once is no reason why the rest of us should jilt _him_."

* * * * *

It is an hour later, and all the guests have gone except indeed Kit, who has been sent upstairs tired and sleepy to share Monica's room, and Terence and Brian Desmond, who with his friend Kelly are struggling into their top-coats in the hall. The rain is descending in torrents, and they are regarding with rather rueful countenances the dog-cart awaiting them outside, in which they had driven over in the sunny morning that seems impossible, when Madam O'Connor sweeps down upon them.

"Take off those coats at once," she says. "What do you mean, Brian? I wouldn't have it on my conscience to send a rat out of my house on such a night as this, unless under cover." Her conscience is Madam's strong point. She excels in it. She ofttimes swears by it! Her promise to Miss Priscilla that Desmond shall not sleep beneath her roof during Monica's stay is forgotten or laid aside, and finally, with a smile of satisfaction, she sees the two young men carried off by Ronayne for a final smoke before turning in.

"I don't feel a bit sleepy myself," says Monica, who is looking as fresh and sweet as if only now just risen.

"Neither do I," says Olga. "Come to my room, then, and talk to me for a minute or two."

They must have been long minutes, because it is quite an hour later when a little slender figure, clad in a pretty white dressing-gown, emerges on tiptoe from Mrs. Bohun's room and steals hurriedly along the deserted corridor.

Somebody else is hurrying along this corridor, too. Seeing the childish figure in the white gown, he pauses; perhaps he thinks it is a ghost; but, if so, he is a doughty man, because he goes swiftly up to it with a glad smile upon his lips.

"My darling girl," he says, in a subdued voice, "I thought you were in the middle of your first happy dream by this."

Monica smiles, and leaves her hand in his.

"I am not such a lazy-bones as you evidently thought me," she says. "But I must hurry now, indeed. All the world is abed, I suppose; and if Kit wakes and finds me not yet come, she will be frightened."

"Before you go, tell me you will meet me somewhere to-morrow. You," uncertainly, "_are_ going home to-morrow, are you not?"

"Yes. But--but--_how_ can I meet you? I have almost given my word to Aunt Priscilla to do nothing--clandestine--or that; and how shall I break it? You are always tempting me, and"--a soft glance stealing to him from beneath her lashes--"I should _like_ to see you, of course, but so much duty I owe to her."

"Your first duty is to your husband," responds he, gravely.

She turns to him with startled eyes.

"Who is that?" she asks.

"I am," boldly; "or at least I soon shall be: it is all the same."

"How sure you are of me!" she says, with just the faintest touch of offence in her tone that quickens his pulses to fever-heat.

"_Sure!_" he says, with a melancholy raised by passion into something that is almost vehemence. "Was I ever so _unsure_ of anything, I wonder? There is so little certainty connected with you in my mind that half my days are consumed by doubts that render me miserable! Yet I put my trust in you. Upon your sweetness I build my hope. I feel you would not willingly condemn any one to death, and what could I do but die if you now throw me over? But you _won't I think_."

"No, no," says Monica, impulsively, tears in her eyes and voice. Tremblingly she yields herself to him, and let him hold her to his heart in a close embrace. "How could you think that of me? Have you forgotten that I _kissed_ you?"

Plainly she lays great stress upon that rash act committed the other night beneath the stars.

"_Forget it!_" says Desmond, in a tone that leaves nothing to be desired. "You are mine, then, now,--now and forever," he says, presently.

"But there is always Aunt Priscilla," says Monica, nervously. Her tone is full of affliction. "Oh, if she could _only_ see me now!"

"Well, she _can't_, that's one comfort; not if she were the hundred-eyed Argus himself."

"I feel I am behaving very badly to her," says Monica, dolorously. "I am, in spite of myself, deceiving her, and to-morrow, when it is all over,----"

"It shan't be over," interrupts he, with considerable vigor. "What a thing to say!"

"I shall feel _so_ guilty when I get back to Moyne. Just as if I had been doing something dreadful. So I have, I think. How shall I ever be able to look her in the face again?"

"Don't you know? It is the simplest thing in the world. You have only to fix your eyes steadily on the tip of her nose, and there you are!"

This disgraceful frivolity on the part of her lover rouses quick reproach in Monica's eyes.

"I don't think it is a nice thing to laugh at one," she says, very justly incensed. "I wouldn't laugh at _you_ if you were unhappy. You are not the least help to me. What _am_ I to say to Aunt Priscilla?"

"'How d'ye do?' first; and then--in an _airy_ tone, you know--'I am going to be married, as soon as time permits, to Brian Desmond.' No, no," penitently, catching a firmer hold of her as she makes a valiant but ineffectual effort to escape the shelter of his arms, "I didn't mean it. I am sorry, and I'll never do it again. I'll sympathize with _anything_ you say, if you will promise not to desert me."

"It is you," reproachfully, "who desert me, and in my hour of need. I don't think," wistfully, "I am so _very_ much to blame, am I? I didn't _ask_ you to fall in love with me, and when you came here all this week to see Madam O'Connor I couldn't possibly have turned my back upon you, could I?"

"You could; but it would have brought you to the verge of suicide and murder. Because, as you turned, I should have turned too, on the chance of seeing your face, and so on, and on until vertigo set in, and death ensued, and we were both buried in one common grave. It sounds awful, doesn't it? Well, and where, then, will you come to meet me to-morrow?"

"To the river, I suppose," says Monica.

"Do you know," says Desmond, after a short pause, "I shall have to leave you soon? Not now; not until October, perhaps; but whenever I do go it will be for a month at least."

"A _month_?"

"Yes."

"A whole long month!"

"The longest month I shall have ever known," sadly.

"I certainly didn't think you would go and do a thing like _that_," says his beloved, with much severity.

"My darling, I can't help it; but we needn't talk about it just yet. Only it came into my head a moment ago, that it would be very sweet to get a letter from you while I was away: a letter," softly, "a letter from my own wife to her husband."

Monica glances at him in a half-perplexed fashion, and then, as though some thought has come to her for the first time, and brought merriment in its train, her lips part, and all her lovely face breaks into silent mirth.

"What is it?" asks he, a little--just a very little--disconcerted.

"Oh, nothing; nothing, really. Only it _does_ seem so funny to think I have got a husband," she says, in a choked whisper, and then her mirth gets beyond her control, and, but that Brian presses her head down on his chest, and so stifles it, they might have had Miss Fitzgerald out upon them in ten seconds.

"Hush!" whispers the embryo husband, giving her a little shake. But he is laughing, too.

"I don't feel as if I honored you a bit," says Miss Beresford; "and as to the 'obey,' I certainly shan't do that."

"As if I should ask you!" says Desmond. "But what of the _love_, sweetheart?"

"Why, as it is yours, you ought to be the one to answer _that_ question," retorts she, prettily, a warm flush dyeing her face.

"But why must you leave me?" she says, presently.

"The steward has written to me once or twice. Tenants nowadays are so troublesome. Of course I could let the whole thing slide, and the property go to the dogs; but no man has a right to do that. I am talking of my own place now, you understand,--_yours_, as it will be soon, I hope."

"And where is--_our_ place?"

The hesitation is adorable, but still more adorable are the smile and blush that accompany it.

"In Westmeath," says Brian, when some necessary preliminaries have been gone through. "I hope you will like it. It is far prettier than Coole in every way."

"And I think Coole lovely, what I've seen of it," says Monica, sweetly.

Here the lamp that has hitherto been lighting the corridor, thinking, doubtless (and very reasonably, too), that it has done its duty long enough, flickers, and goes out. But no darkness follows its defection. Through the far window a pale burst of light rushes, illumining in a cold and ghostly manner the spot on which they stand. "The meek-eyed morn, mother of dews," has come, and night has slipped away abashed, with covered front.

Together they move to the window and look out upon the awakening world; and, even as they gaze enraptured at its fairness, the sun shoots up from yonder hill, and a great blaze of glory is abroad.

"Over the spangled grass Swept the swift footsteps of the lovely light, Turning the tears of Night to joyous gems."

"Oh, we have delayed too long," says Monica, with a touch of awe engendered by the marvellous and mystic beauty of the hour. "Good-night, good-night!"

"Nay, rather a fair good-morrow, my sweet love," says Desmond, straining her to his heart.