"I wish you could!" says Geoffrey from his heart.
"Well, I can"t, you know," with a sigh. "But no matter: you will enjoy the scenery even more by yourself."
"I don"t think I shall," says Geoffrey, in a low tone.
"Well, we have both seen the bay," says Mona, cheerfully,--"Bantry Bay I mean: so we can talk about that. Yet indeed"--seriously--"you cannot be said to have seen it properly, as it is only by moonlight its full beauty can be appreciated. Then, with its light waves sparkling beneath the gleam of the stars, and the moon throwing a path across it that seems to go on and on, until it reaches heaven, it is more satisfying than a happy dream. Do you see that hill up yonder?" pointing to an elevation about a mile distant: "there I sometimes sit when the moon is full, and watch the bay below. There is a lovely view from that spot."
"I wish I could see it!" says Geoffrey, longingly.
"Well so you can," returns she, kindly. "Any night when there is a good moon come to me and I will go with you to Carrickdhuve--that is the name of the hill--and show you the bay."
She looks at him quite calmly, as one might who sees nothing in the fact of accompanying a young man to the top of a high mountain after nightfall. And in truth she does see nothing in it. If he wishes to see the bay she loves so well, of course he must see it; and who so competent to point out to him all its beauties as herself?
"I wonder when the moon will be full," says Geoffrey, making this ordinary remark in an everyday tone that does him credit, and speaks well for his kindliness and delicacy of feeling, as well as for his power of discerning character. He makes no well-turned speeches about the bay being even more enchanting under such circ.u.mstances, or any orthodox compliment that might have pleased a woman versed in the world"s ways.
"We must see," says Mona, thoughtfully.
They have reached the farm again by this time, and Geoffrey, taking up the guns he had left behind the hall door,--or what old Scully is pleased to call the front door in contradistinction to the back door, through which he is in the habit of making his exits and entrances,--holds out his hand to bid her good-by.
"Come in for a little while and rest yourself," says Mona, hospitably, "while I get the brandy and send it up to poor Kitty."
It strikes Geoffrey as part of the innate sweetness and genuineness of her disposition that, after all the many changes of thought that have pa.s.sed through her brain on their return journey, her first concern on entering her own doors is for the poor unhappy creature in the cabin up yonder.
"Don"t be long," he says, impulsively, as she disappears down a pa.s.sage.
"I won"t, then. Sure you can live alone with yourself for one minute,"
returns she, in very fine Irish; and, with a parting smile, sweet as nectar and far more dangerous, she goes.
When she is gone, Geoffrey walks impatiently up and down the small hall, conflicting emotions robbing him of the serenity that usually attends his footsteps. He is happy, yet full of a secret gnawing uneasiness that weighs upon him daily, hourly. Near Mona--when in her presence--a gladness that amounts almost to perfect happiness is his; apart from her is unrest. Love, although he is but just awakening to the fact, has laid his chubby hands upon him, and now holds him in thrall; so that no longer for him is that most desirable thing content,--which means indifference. Rather is he melancholy now and then, and inclined to look on life apart from Mona as a doubtful good.
For what, after all, is love, but
"A madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet?"
There are, too, dispa.s.sionate periods, when he questions the wisdom of giving his heart to a girl lowly born as Mona undoubtedly is, at least on her father"s side. And, indeed, the little drop of blue blood inherited from her mother is so faint in hue as to be scarcely recognizable by those inclined to cavil.
And these he knows will be many: there would be first his mother, and then Nick, with a silent tongue but brows uplifted, and after them Violet, who in the home circle is regarded as Geoffrey"s "affinerty,"
and who last year was asked to Rodney Towers for the express purpose (though she knew it not) of laying siege to his heart and bestowing upon him in return her hand and--fortune. To do Lady Rodney justice, she was never blind to the fortune!
Yet Violet, with her pretty, slow, _trainante_ voice and perfect manner, and small pale attractive face, and great eyes that seem too earnest for the fragile body to which they belong, is as naught before Mona, whose beauty is strong and undeniable, and whose charm lies as much in inward grace as in outward loveliness.
Though uncertain that she regards him with any feeling stronger than that of friendliness (because of the strange coldness that she at times affects, dreading perhaps lest he shall see too quickly into her tender heart), yet instinctively he knows that he is welcome in her sight, and that "the day grows brighter for his coming." Still, at times this strange coldness puzzles him, not understanding that
"No lesse was she in secret heart affected, But that she masked it in modestie, For feare she should of lightnesse be detected."
For many days he had not known "that his heart was darkened with her shadow." Only yesterday he might perhaps have denied his love for her, so strange, so uncertain, so undreamt of, is the dawning of a first great attachment. One looks upon the object that attracts, and finds the deepest joy in looking, yet hardly realizes the great truth that she has become part of one"s being, not to be eradicated until death or change come to the rescue.
Perhaps Longfellow has more cleverly--and certainly more tenderly--than any other poet described the earlier approaches of the G.o.d of Love, when he says,--
"The first sound in the song of love Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings Of that mysterious instrument, the soul, And play the prelude of our fate."
For Geoffrey the prelude has been played, and now at last he knows it.
Up and down the little hall he paces, his hands behind his back, as his wont when deep in day-dreams, and asks himself many a question hitherto unthought of. Can he--shall he--go farther in this matter? Then this thought presses to the front beyond all others:--"Does she--will she--ever love me?"
"Now, hurry, Bridget," says Mona"s low soft voice,--that "excellent thing in woman." "Don"t be any time. Just give that to Kitty, and say one prayer, and be back in ten minutes."
"Law, Miss Mona, ye needn"t tell me; sure I"m flyin" I"ll be there an"
back before ye"ll know I"m gone." This from the agile Biddy, as (exhilarated with the knowledge that she is going to see a corpse) she rushes up the road.
"Now come and see my own room," says Mona, going up to Rodney, and, slipping her hand into his in a little trustful fashion that is one of her many, loving ways, she leads him along the hall to a door opposite the kitchen. This she opens, and with conscious pride draws him after her across its threshold. So holding him, she might at this moment have drawn him to the world"s end,--wherever that may be!
It is a very curious little room they enter,--yet pretty, withal, and suggestive of care and affection, and certainly not one to be laughed at. Each object that meets the view seems replete with pleasurable memory,--seems part of its gentle mistress. There are two windows, small, and with diamond panes like the parlor, and in the far end is a piano. There are books, and some ornaments, and a huge bowl of sweetly-smelling flowers on the centre-table, and a bracket or two against the walls. Some loose music is lying on a chair.
"Now I am here, you will sing me something," says Geoffrey, presently.
"I wonder what kind of songs you like best," says Mona, dreamily, letting her fingers run noiselessly over the keys of the Collard. "If you are like me, you like sad ones."
"Then I am like you?" returns he, quickly.
"Then I will sing you a song I was sent last week," says Mona, and forthwith sings him "Years Ago," mournfully, pathetically, and with all her soul, as it should be sung. Then she gives him "London Bridge," and then "Rose-Marie," and then she takes her fingers from the piano and looks at him with a fond hope that he will see fit to praise her work.
"You are an artiste," says Geoffrey, with a deep sigh when she has finished. "Who taught you, child? But there is no use in such a question. n.o.body could teach it to you: you must feel it as you sing.
And yet you are scarcely to be envied. Your singing has betrayed to me one thing: if ever you suffer any great trouble it will kill you."
"I am not going to suffer," says Mona, lightly. "Sorrow only falls on every second generation; and you know poor mother was very unhappy at one time: therefore I am free. You will call that superst.i.tion, but,"
with a grave shake of her head, "it is quite true."
"I hope it is," says Geoffrey; "though, taking your words for gospel, it rather puts me out in the cold. My mother seems to have had rather a good time all through, devoid of anything that might be termed trouble."
"But she lost her husband," says Mona, gently.
"Well, she did. I don"t remember about that, you know. I was quite a little chap, and hustled out of sight if I said "boo." But of course she"s got over all that, and is as jolly as a sand-boy now," says Geoffrey, gayly. (If only Lady Rodney could have heard him comparing her to a "sand-boy"!)
"Poor thing!" says Mona, sympathetically, which sympathy, by the by, is utterly misplaced, as Lady Rodney thought her husband, if anything, an old bore, and three months after his death confessed to herself that she was very glad he was no more.
"Where do you get your music?" asks Geoffrey, idly, wondering how "London Bridge" has found its way to this isolated spot, as he thinks of the shops in the pretty village near, where Molloy and Adams, and their attendant sprite called Weatherley, are unknown.
"The boys send it to me. Anything new that comes out, or anything they think will suit my voice, they post to me at once."
"The boys!" repeats he, mystified.
"Yes, the students, I mean. When with aunty in Dublin I knew ever so many of them, and they were very fond of me."
"I dare say," says Mr. Rodney, with rising ire.
"Jack Foster and Terry O"Brien write to me very often," goes on Mona, unconsciously. "And indeed they all do occasionally, at Christmas, you know, and Easter and Midsummer, just to ask me how I am, and to tell me how they have got through their exams. But it is Jack and Terry, for the most part, who send me the music."
"It is very kind of them, I"m sure," says Geoffrey, unreasonably jealous, as, could he only have seen the said Terry"s shock head of red hair, his fears of rivalry would forever have been laid at rest. "But they are favored friends. You can take presents from them, and yet the other day when I asked you if you would like a little gold chain to hang to your mother"s watch, you answered me "that you did not require it" in such a tone as actually froze me and made me feel I had said something unpardonably impertinent."