She flushes, opens her lips as if to speak, and yet is dumb,--perhaps through excess of emotion.
"Mona, it is not--it cannot be--but is it?" asks he incoherently.
"The missing will? Yes--yes--_yes_!" cries she, raising the hand that is behind her, and holding it high above her head with the will held tightly in it.
It is a supreme moment. A deadly silence falls upon the room, and then Dorothy bursts into tears. In my heart I believe she feels as much relief at Mona"s exculpation as at the discovery of the desired deed.
Mona, turning not to Nicholas or to Doatie or to Geoffrey but to Lady Rodney, throws the paper into her lap.
"The will--but are you sure--sure?" says Lady Rodney, feebly. She tries to rise, but sinks back again in her chair, feeling faint and overcome.
"Quite sure," says Mona, and then she laughs aloud--a sweet, joyous laugh,--and clasps her hands together with undisguised delight and satisfaction.
Geoffrey, who has tears in his eyes, takes her in his arms and kisses her once softly, before them all.
"My best beloved," he says, with pa.s.sionate fondness, beneath his breath; but she hears him, and wonders vaguely but gladly at his tone, not understanding the rush of tenderness that almost overcomes him as he remembers how his mother--whom she has been striving with all her power to benefit--has been grossly maligning and misjudging her. Truly she is too good for those among whom her lot has been cast.
"It is like a fairy-tale," says Violet, with unwonted excitement. "Oh, Mona, tell us how you managed it."
"Well, just after luncheon Let.i.tia, your maid, brought me a note. I opened it. It was from Paul Rodney, asking me to meet him at three o"clock, as he had something of importance to say that concerned not me but those I loved. When he said _that_," says Mona, looking round upon them all with a large, soft, comprehensive glance, and a sweet smile, "I knew he meant _you_. So I went. I got into my coat and hat, and ran all the way to the spot he had appointed,--the big chestnut-tree near the millstream: you know it, Geoff, don"t you?"
"Yes, I know it," says Geoffrey.
"He was there before me, and almost immediately he drew the will from his pocket, and said he would give it to me if--if--well, he gave it to me," says Mrs. Geoffrey, changing color as she remembers her merciful escape. "And he desired me to tell you, Nicholas, that he would never claim the t.i.tle, as it was useless to him and it sits so sweetly on you.
And then I clutched the will, and held it tightly, and ran all the way back with it, and--and that"s all!"
She smiles again, and, with a sigh of rapture at her own success, turns to Geoffrey and presses her lips to his out of the very fulness of her heart.
"Why have you taken all this trouble about us?" says Lady Rodney, leaning forward to look at the girl anxiously, her voice low and trembling.
At this Mona, being a creature of impulse, grows once more pale and troubled.
"It was for you," she says, hanging her head. "I thought if I could do something to make you happier, you might learn to love me a little!"
"I have wronged you," says Lady Rodney, in a low tone, covering her face with her hands.
"Go to her," says Geoffrey, and Mona, slipping from his embrace, falls on her knees at his mother"s feet. With one little frightened hand she tries to possess herself of the fingers that shield the elder woman"s face.
"It is too late," says Lady Rodney, in a stifled tone. "I have said so many things about you, that--that----"
"I don"t care what you have said," interrupts Mona, quickly. She has her arms round Lady Rodney"s waist by this time, and is regarding her beseechingly.
"There is too much to forgive," says Lady Rodney, and as she speaks two tears roll down her cheeks. This evidence of emotion from her is worth a torrent from another.
"Let there be no talk of forgiveness between you and me," says Mona, very sweetly, after which Lady Rodney fairly gives way, and placing her arms round the kneeling girl, draws her to her bosom and kisses her tenderly.
Every one is delighted. Perhaps Nolly and Jack Rodney are conscious of a wild desire to laugh, but if so, they manfully suppress it, and behave as decorously as the rest.
"Now I am quite, quite happy," says Mona, and, rising from her knees, she goes back again to Geoffrey, and stands beside him. "Tell them all about last night," she says, looking up at him, "and the secret cupboard."
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
HOW THE RODNEYS MAKE MERRY OVER THE SECRET PANEL--HOW GEOFFREY QUESTIONS MONA--AND HOW, WHEN JOY IS AT ITS HIGHEST EVIL TIDINGS SWEEP DOWN UPON THEM.
At the mention of the word "secret" every one grows very much alive at once. Even Lady Rodney dries her tears and looks up expectantly.
"Yes, Geoffrey and I have made a discovery,--a most important one,--and it has lain heavy on our b.r.e.a.s.t.s all day. Now tell them everything about last night, Geoff, from beginning to end."
Thus adjured,--though in truth he requires little pressing, having been devoured with a desire since early dawn to reveal the hidden knowledge that is in his bosom,--Geoffrey relates to them the adventure of the night before. Indeed, he gives such a brilliant coloring to the tale that every one is stricken dumb with astonishment, Mona herself perhaps being the most astonished of all. However, like a good wife, she makes no comments, and contradicts his statements not at all, so that (emboldened by her evident determination not to interfere with anything he may choose to say) he gives them such a story as absolutely brings down the house,--metaphorically speaking.
"A secret panel! Oh, how enchanting! do, _do_ show it to me!" cries Doatie Darling, when this marvellous recital has come to an end. "If there is one thing I adore, it is a secret chamber, or a closet in a house, or a ghost."
"You may have the ghosts all to yourself. I sha"n"t grudge them to you.
I"ll have the cupboards," says Nicholas, who has grown at least ten years younger during the last hour. "Mona, show us this one."
Mona, drawing a chair to the panelled wall, steps up on it, and, pressing her finger on the seventh panel, it slowly rolls back, betraying the vacuum behind.
They all examine it with interest, Nolly being specially voluble on the occasion.
"And to think we all sat pretty nearly every evening within a yard or two of that blessed will, and never knew anything about it!" he says, at last, in a tone of unmitigated disgust.
"Yes, that is just what occurred to me," says Mona, nodding her head sympathetically.
"No? did it?" says Nolly, sentimentally. "How--how awfully satisfactory it is to know we both thought alike on even one subject!"
Mona, after a stare of bewilderment that dies at its birth, gives way to laughter: she is still standing on the chair, and looking down on Nolly, who is adoring her in the calm and perfectly open manner that belongs to him.
Just then Dorothy says,--
"Shut it up tight again, Mona, and let _me_ try to open it." And, Mona having closed the panel again and jumped down off the chair, Doatie takes her place, and, supported by Nicholas, opens and shuts the secret door again and again to her heart"s content.
"It is quite simple: there is no deception," says Mr. Darling, addressing the room, with gracious encouragement in his tone, shrugging his shoulders and going through all the airs and graces that belong to the orthodox French showman.
"It is quite necessary you should know all about it," says Nicholas, in a low tone, to Dorothy, whom he is holding carefully, as though under the mistaken impression that young women if left on chairs without support invariably fall off them. "As the future mistress here, you ought to be up to every point connected with the old place."
Miss Darling blushes. It is so long since she has given way to this weakness that now she does it warmly and generously, as though to make up for other opportunities neglected. She scrambles down off the chair, and, going up to Mona, surprises that heroine of the hour by bestowing upon her a warm though dainty hug.
"It is all your doing. How wretched we should have been had we never seen you!" she says, with tears of grat.i.tude in her eyes.
Altogether it is a very exciting and pleasurable moment.
The panel is as good as a toy to them. They all open it by turns, and wonder over it, and rejoice in it. But Geoffrey, taking Mona aside, says curiously, and a little gravely,--
"Tell me why you hesitated in your speech a while ago. Talking of Rodney"s giving you the will, you said he offered to give it you if--if----What did the "if" mean?"