Great Possessions Part 13

The obvious nature of the advice, of which this remark is a sample, did not spoil it. Sometimes it is a comfort to have the thing said to us that we quite see for ourselves. In to-day's unwonted mood Molly was ready to receive very ordinary wisdom as golden.

And then Lady Groombridge discovered that Molly was musical, and the older woman loved music, finding in it some of the romance which was shut out by her own limitations and by a life of over great bustle and worry.

So Molly found in her music expression for her joy in the spring, and her wistful, undefined sense of hope in life.

Lady Groombridge, sitting near her, listened almost hungrily, and asked for more. She was utterly sad to-night with the "might have been" of a childless woman. The news of the final sacrifice on the part of the heir to Groombridge, of all that meant so much to herself and her husband, had made so keen to her the sense of emptiness in their old age. And the music soothed her into a deeper feeling of submission that in reality underlay the outward unrest and discontent of to-day. Submission was, at one time, the most marked virtue of every cla.s.s in our country, and it may be found sometimes in those who, having lost all other conscious religion, will still say, "He knows best," revealing thereby the bed-rock of faith as the foundation of their lives. Lady Groombridge had not lost her religious beliefs, but she was more dutiful than devout, and did not herself often reflect on what strength duty depended.

And Molly, who knew nothing of submission, yet ministered to the older woman's peace by her music. When the men came out, Lord Groombridge took a chair close to his wife's as if to share in her pleasure, and Edmund moved out of Molly's sight. She sometimes heard the voice of Rose or of Billy or of Mrs. Delaport Green, but not Sir Edmund's, and she naturally thought he was listening, whereas part of the time he was reading a review. But as the ladies were going up to bed, he said, looking into the large, grey eyes:

"Who said she could do nothing but run like a deerhound and bandage like a surgeon? And now I find she can play like an artist. What next?"

And Molly, standing in her room, said to herself that it had been the happiest day of her life.

But a moment later the maid came in, and while helping to take off her dinner dress, told her mistress that the kitchenmaid in a room near hers was groaning horribly. It seemed that Lady Groombridge had given out some medicine, and Lady Rose had sent up her hot-water bottle and her spirit-lamp, and had advised that the bottle be constantly refilled during the night.

"But I'm sure, miss, she shouldn't take that medicine. I took on myself to tell her not to till I'd spoken to you, and I'm sure I don't know who is going to sit up filling bottles to-night. Lady Groombridge's maid"--in a tone of deep respect--"isn't one to be disturbed, and the scullerymaid won't get to bed till one in the morning: this girl being ill it gives her double work."

Molly instantly rose to the situation. She knew of better appliances than the softest hot-water bottles, and soon after her noiseless entrance into the housemaid's attic the pain had been relieved. But, being a little afraid that the girl was threatened with appendicitis, she knew that if that were the case the relief from the application she had used was only temporary. However, the patient rested longer than she expected. Molly sat by the open window, while behind her on the two narrow beds lay the sick girl and the now loudly-snoring scullerymaid, who had come up a little before twelve o'clock.

"Not quite six hours' sleep that girl will get to-night," mused Molly, "and then downstairs again and two hours' work before the cook comes down to scold her. What a life!"

But, after all, Molly had noticed the blush with which the girl had put a few violets in a little pot on the chimney-piece. Was it quite sure that Miss Dexter's life would be happier than that of the snorer on the bed, who smiled once or twice in her noisy sleep?

"There is happiness in this world after all," mused Molly, soothed by thoughts of the past day, by the stillness on the face of the earth, and by a certain rest that came to her with all acts of kindness--a certain lull to those activities of mind and instinct that constantly led her out of the paths of peace.

This was a sacred time of the night to Molly. It was a.s.sociated in her mind with the best hours she had ever lived, hours of sick nursing and devotion, hours of real use and help. For months now she had been living entirely for herself, to fight her own battle and make her own way in a hostile world. She had had much excitement and even real pleasure. Her imagination had taken fire with the notion that she must a.s.sert herself or be crushed in the race of life. Heavy ordinary people would find it hard to understand Molly's strange idealisation of the glories of the kingdom of this world which she meant to conquer. And if she were frustrated in her pa.s.sion for worldly success, there were capacities in her which she as yet hardly suspected, but she did feel at times the stirrings of evil things, cruelty, revenge, and she hardly knew what else. How could people understand her? She shrank from understanding herself.

But to-night she knew the inspiration of another ideal; she recognised the possibility of aims in which self hardly counts. There had been indeed a stir in the minds of all at Groombridge when they knew of the final step taken by the heir. Molly, looking up at the great castle, on her homeward drive, with its ma.s.sive towers and its most commanding position, had felt more and more impressed by an action on so big a scale. It was impossible to be at Groombridge and not to feel the great and n.o.ble opportunities its possession must give any remarkable man; and the man who could give up such opportunities must be a very remarkable man indeed. In Molly's self-engrossed life it had something of the same effect as a great thunderstorm among mountains would have had in the physical order.

And to-night it came over her again, and she seemed to be listening to the echoes of a far vibrating sound. And might there not be happiness for Mark Molyneux? Might it not be happiness for herself to give up the wretched, uncomfortable fight that life so often seemed to be, and to let loose the Molly who could toil and go sleepless and be happy, if she could achieve any diminution of bodily pain in man or woman, child or beast?

The dawn lightened; one or two rabbits stirred in the bracken in the near park--this was peace. Then Molly smiled tenderly at the dawn. There might come another solution in which life would be unselfish without such acute sacrifice, and in which evil possibilities would be starved for lack of temptation. And all that was good would grow in the sunshine.

And the sleeping scullerymaid smiled also.

CHAPTER XIII

SIR DAVID'S MEMORY

Lady Rose Bright was faintly disturbed on Tuesday morning, and came into Lady Groombridge's sitting-room after Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly had left the castle too preoccupied to notice the tall figure of Grosse in a far window.

This room had happily escaped all Georgian gorgeousness of decoration, and the backs of the books, a fine eighteenth-century collection, stood flush to the walls. The long room was all white except for the books, the flowered chintz covers, some fine bronze statuettes, and a few bowls of roses.

Lady Rose moved mechanically towards the empty fire-place.

It was one thing to try not to dislike Miss Dexter, and to see her in a haze of Christian love; it was another to realise that, while she herself had slept most comfortably, Molly had not been to bed at all because the little kitchenmaid was in pain. Humility and appreciation were rising in Rose's mind, as half absently she gently raised a vase from the chimney-piece, and, turning to the light to examine its mark, saw Sir Edmund looking at her from his distant window.

A little, quite a little, flush came into her cheeks; not much deeper than the soft, healthy colour usual to them. She examined the china with more attention.

The tall figure moved slowly, lazily, down the room towards her, holding the _Times_ in one hand.

"It's not Oriental," he said, "it's Lowestoft."

"Ah!" said Rose absently. She felt the eyes whose sadness had been apparent even to Mrs. Delaport Green looking her over with a quick scrutiny.

"Why, in your general scheme of benevolence, have you not thought it fit, during the last few days, to give me the chance of talking to you alone?" The tone was full of exasperation, but ironical too, as if he were faintly amused at himself for being exasperated.

"I don't know. Have I avoided being alone with you?" Rose had turned to the chimney-piece.

Edmund Grosse sank into a low chair, crossed his legs, and looked up at her defiantly, but with keen observation.

"It has been too absurd," he said, "you have hardly spoken to me, and you know, of course, that I came here to see you. I meant to go to the Riviera until I heard that you were coming here."

"But you have been quite happy, quite amused. There seemed no reason why I should interrupt. And you know, Edmund, they said that you came here every year."

"Well, I didn't come only to see you," he said, "as you like it better that way. And now, it is about Miss Molly Dexter I want to speak to you."

This time Rose gave a little ghost of a sigh, and looked at him with unutterable kindness. She was feeling that, after all, she had come second in his consciousness--after Miss Dexter, whom she could not like, but who had sat up all night with the kitchenmaid.

"Why about Miss Dexter? what can I have to do with her?" The tone was almost contemptuous--not quite, Rose was too kind.

"Do you remember that I went to Florence?"

"Yes; I did not want you to go." There was at once a distinct note of distress in her voice. It was horribly painful to her to have to think of the things she tried so hard to bury away.

"No, but I went," he said very gently; "and it was useless, as I knew it would be. But I want to tell you one thing which I have learnt, and which I think you ought to know, as it may be inconvenient if you do not. It is that Miss Dexter----" Rose interrupted him quickly.

"Is the daughter of the lady in Florence?" She gave a little hysterical laugh. He looked at her in astonishment.

"And that is why she dislikes me so much. Do you know, Edmund, I had a feeling from the moment I first saw her that there was something wrong between us. It gave me a horrible feeling, and then I asked Mary Groombridge about her, and she told me the poor girl's story; only she said the mother lived in Paris. Of course Mary does not know, or she would never have asked us here together. But that is how I knew what you were going to say; and yet I had no notion of it till a moment ago, when it came to me in a flash. Only I wish I had known sooner!"

It was not common with Rose to say so much at a time, and there had been slight breaks and gaps in her voice, pathetic sounds to the listener.

She seemed a little--just a little--out of breath with past sorrow and present pain. Edmund thought he would never come to know all the inflections in that voice.

"I wish I had known sooner. I am afraid I have not been kind to her."

"And if you had known you would have cast your pearls at her feet," he said, in tender anger. "Don't make the mistake of being too kind to her, Rose. I want you to keep her at a distance. There is something all the more dangerous about her because she is distinctly attractive. She has primitive pa.s.sions, and yet she is not melodramatic; it's a dangerous species."

It was amazing how easy it was to take a severe view of poor Molly after she had gone away, and how he believed what he said.

"She has never seen her mother?" asked Rose gently.

"No, but I am sure she knows about her mother," the slowness in his voice was vindictive; "and that her mother knows what we don't know about the will."

"Edmund dear," said Rose very earnestly, "do please leave that point alone; no good can come of it. I do a.s.sure you that no good, only harm, will come of it. It's bad and unwholesome for us all--mother and you and me--to dwell on it. I do really wish you would leave it alone."