"Oh, you have him!" says Mona, with a beaming smile, that is not reciprocated by the captured turkey. "Hold him tight: you have no idea how artful he is. Sure I knew you"d get him, if any one could!"
There is admiration blended with relief in her tone, and Geoffrey begins to feel like a hero of Waterloo.
"Now carry him over the bridge and put him down there, and he must go home, whether he likes it or not," goes on Mona to her warrior, whereupon that renowned person, armed with the shrieking turkey, crosses the bridge. Having gained the other side, he places the angry bird on its mother earth, and with a final and almost tender "Shoo!" sends him scuttling along to the farmyard in the distance, where, no doubt, he is received either with open arms and kisses, or with a sounding "spank,"
as our American cousins would say, by his terrified mamma.
He finds Mona on his return sitting on a bank, laughing and trying to recover her breath.
"I hardly think this is Sunday work," she says, lightly; "but the poor little thing would have died if left out all night. Wasn"t it well you saw him?"
"Most fortunate," says Rodney, with deep gravity. "I consider I have been the means of preventing a public calamity. Why, that bird might have haunted us later on."
"Fancy a turkey ghost," says Mona. "How ugly it would be. It would have all its feathers off, of course."
"Certainly not," says Geoffrey: "I blush for you. I never yet heard of a ghost that was not strictly decent. It would have had a winding sheet, of course. Come, let us go for a walk."
"To the old fort?" asks Mona, starting to her feet.
"Anywhere you like. I"m sure we deserve some compensation for the awful sermon that curate gave us this morning."
So they start, in a lazy, happy-go-lucky fashion, for their walk, conversing as they go, of themselves princ.i.p.ally as all true lovers will.
But the fort, on this evening at least, is never reached Mona, coming to a stile, seats himself comfortably on the top of it, and looks with mild content around.
"Are you going no farther?" asks Rodney, hoping sincerely she will say "No." She does say it.
"It is so nice here," she says, with a soft sigh, and a dreamy smile, whereupon he too climbs and seats himself beside her. As they are now situated, there is about half a yard between them of pa.s.sable wall crowned with green sods, across which they can hold sweet converse with the utmost affability. The evening is fine; the heavens promise to be fair; the earth beneath is calm and full of silence as becomes a Sabbath eve; yet, alas! Mona strikes a chord that presently flings harmony to the winds.
"Tell me about your mother," she says, folding her hands easily in her lap. "I mean,--what is she like? Is she cold, or proud, or stand-off?"
There is keen anxiety in her tone.
"Eh?" says Geoffrey, rather taken back. "Cold" and "proud" he cannot deny, even to himself, are words that suit his mother rather more than otherwise.
"I mean," says Mona, flushing a vivid scarlet, "is she stern?"
"Oh, no," says Geoffrey, hastily, recovering himself just in time; "she"s all right, you know, my mother; and you"ll like her awfully when--when you know her, and when--when she knows you."
"Will that take her long?" asks Mona, somewhat wistfully, feeling, without understanding, some want in his voice.
"I don"t see how it could take any one long," says Rodney.
"Ah! that is because you are a man, and because you love me," says this astute reader of humanity. "But women are so different. Suppose--suppose she _never_ gets to like me?"
"Well, even that awful misfortune might be survived. We can live in our own home "at ease," as the old song says, until she comes to her senses.
By and by, do you know you have never asked me about your future home,--my own place, Leighton Hall? and yet it is rather well worth asking about, because, though small, it is one of the oldest and prettiest places in the county."
"Leighton Hall," repeats she, slowly, fixing upon him her dark eyes that are always so full of truth and honesty. "But you told me you were poor.
That a third son----"
"Wasn"t much!" interrupts Geoffrey, with an attempt at carelessness that rather falls through beneath the gaze of those searching eyes. "Well, no more he is, you know, as a rule, unless some kind relative comes to his a.s.sistance."
"But you told me no maiden aunt had ever come to your a.s.sistance," goes on Mona, remorselessly.
"In that I spoke the truth," says Mr. Rodney, with a shameless laugh, "because it was an uncle who left me some money."
"You have not been quite true with me," says Mona, in a curious way, never removing her gaze and never returning his smile. "Are you rich, then, if you are not poor?"
"I"m a long way off being rich," says the young man, who is palpably amused, in spite of a valiant effort to suppress all outward signs of enjoyment. "I"m awfully poor when compared with some fellows. I dare say I must come in for something when my other uncle dies, but at present I have only fifteen hundred pounds a year."
"_Only!_" says Mona. "Do you know, Mr. Moore has no more than that, and we think him very rich indeed! No, you have not been open with me: you should have told me. I haven"t ever thought of you to myself as being a rich man. Now I shall have to begin and think of you a lover again in quite another light." She is evidently deeply aggrieved.
"But, my darling child, I can"t help the fact that George Rodney left me the Hall," says Geoffrey, deprecatingly, reducing the s.p.a.ce between them to a mere nothing, and slipping his arm round her waist. "And if I was a beggar on the face of the earth, I could not love you more than I do, nor could you, I _hope_"--reproachfully--"love me better either."
The reproachful ring in his voice does its intended work. The soft heart throws out resentment, and once more gives shelter to gentle thoughts alone. She even consents to Rodney"s laying his cheek against hers, and faintly returns the pressure of his hand.
"Yet I think you should have told me," she whispers, as a last fading censure. "Do you know you have made me very unhappy?"
"Oh, no, I haven"t, now," says Rodney, rea.s.suringly "You don"t look a bit unhappy; you only look as sweet as an angel."
"You never saw an angel, so you can"t say," says Mona, still sadly severe. "And I _am_ unhappy. How will your mother, Mrs. Rodney, like your marrying me, when you might marry so many other people,--that Miss Mansergh, for instance?"
"Oh, nonsense!" says Rodney, who is in high good humor and can see no rocks ahead. "When my mother sees you she will fall in love with you on the spot, as will everybody else. But look here, you know, you mustn"t call her Mrs. Rodney!"
"Why?" says Mona. "I couldn"t well call her any thing else until I know her."
"That isn"t her name at all," says Geoffrey. "My father was a baronet, you know: she is Lady Rodney."
"What!" says Mona And then she grows quite pale, and, slipping off the stile, stands a few yards away from him.
"That puts an end to everything," she says, in a dreadful little voice that goes to his heart, "at once. I could never face any one with a t.i.tle. What will she say when she hears you are going to marry a farmer"s niece? It is shameful of you," says Mona, with as much indignation as if the young man opposite to her, who is making strenuous but vain efforts to speak, has just been convicted of some heinous crime. "It is disgraceful! I wonder at you! That is twice you have deceived me."
"If you would only hear me----"
"I have heard too much already. I won"t listen to any more. "Lady Rodney!" I dare say"--with awful meaning in her tone--"_you_ have got a t.i.tle _too_!" Then, sternly, "Have you?"
"No, no indeed. I give you my honor, no," says Geoffrey, very earnestly, feeling that Fate has been more than kind to him in that she has denied him a handle to his name.
"You are sure?"--doubtfully.
"Utterly certain."
"And your brother?"
"Jack is only Mr. Rodney too."
"I don"t mean him,"--severely: "I mean the brother you called "Old Nick"--_Old Nick_ indeed!" with suppressed anger.
"Oh, he is only called Sir Nicholas. n.o.body thinks much of that. A baronet is really never of the slightest importance," says Geoffrey, anxiously, feeling exactly as if he were making an apology for his brother.