Molly Bawn Part 27

"Not _my_ thoughts," protests he, vehemently.

"No?" searchingly, drawing a step nearer him. "Are you _sure_?

Have you never wished our grandfather dead?"

"I may have wished it," confesses he, reluctantly, as though compelled to frankness, "but to compa.s.s my wish--to----"

"If you have wished it you have murdered," returns she, with conviction. "You have craved his death: what is that but unuttered crime? There is little difference; it is but one step the more in the same direction. And I,--in what way am I the greater sinner? I have but said aloud what you whisper to your heart."

"Be silent," cries he, fiercely. "All your sophistry fails to make me a partner in your guilt."

"I am the honester of the two," she goes on, rapidly, unheeding his anger. "As long as the accursed thing is unspoken, you see no harm in it; once it makes itself heard, you start and sicken, because it hurts your tender susceptibilities. Yet hear me, Philip." Suddenly changing her tone of pa.s.sionate scorn to one of entreaty as pa.s.sionate, "Do not cast me off for a few idle words. They have done no harm. Let us be as we were."

"Impossible," replies he coldly, unloosing her fingers from his arm, all the dislike and loathing of which he is capable compressed into the word. "You have destroyed my trust in you."

A light that means despair flashes across Marcia's face as she stands in all her dark but rather evil beauty before him; then suddenly she falls upon her knees.

"Philip, have pity on me!" she cries painfully. "I love you,--I have only you. Here in this house I am alone, a stranger in my own land. Do not you too turn from me. Ah! you should be the last to condemn, for if I dreamed of sin it was for your sake. And after all, what did I say?

The thought that this girl's coming might upset the dream of years agitated me, and I spoke--I--but I meant nothing--nothing." She drags herself on her knees nearer to him and attempts to take his hand.

"Darling, do not be so stern. Forgive me. If you cast me off, Philip, you will kill not only my body, but all that is good in me."

"Do not touch me," returns he, harshly, the vein of brutality in him coming to the surface as he pushes her from him and with slight violence unclasps her clinging fingers.

The action is in itself sufficient, but the look that accompanies it--betraying as it does even more disgust than hatred--stings her to self-control. Slowly she rises to her feet. As she does so, a spasm, a contraction near her heart, causes her to place her hand involuntarily against her side, while a dull gray shadow covers her face.

"You mean," she says, speaking with the utmost difficulty, "that all--is at an end--between us."

"I do mean that," he answers, very white, but determined.

"Then beware!" she murmurs, in a low, choked voice.

CHAPTER XI.

"You stood before me like a thought, A dream remembered in a dream."

--Coleridge.

It is five o'clock in the afternoon, and Herst is the richer by one more inmate. Molly has arrived, has been received by Marcia, has pressed cheeks with her, has been told she is welcome in a palpably lying tone, and finally has been conducted to her bedroom. Such a wonder of a bedroom compared with Molly's snug but modest sanctum at home,--a very marvel of white and blue, and cloudy virginal muslins, and filled with innumerable luxuries.

Molly, standing in the centre of it,--unaware that she is putting all its other beauties to shame--gazes round her in silent admiration, appreciates each pretty trifle to its fullest, and finally feels a vague surprise at the curious sense of discontent that pervades her.

Her reception so far has not been cordial. Marcia's cold unloving eyes have pierced her and left a little cold frozen spot within her heart.

She is chilled and puzzled, and with all her strength is wishing herself home again at Brooklyn, with John and Letty, and all the merry, tormenting, kindly children.

"What shall I do for you now, Miss Molly?" asks Sarah, presently breaking in upon these dismal broodings. This antiquated but devoted maiden has stationed herself at the farthest end of the big room close to Molly's solitary trunk (as though suspicious of lurking thieves), and bears upon her countenance a depressed, not to say dejected, expression. "Like mistress, like maid," she, too, is filled with the gloomiest forebodings.

"Open my trunk and take out my clothes," says Molly, making no effort at disrobing, beyond a melancholy attempt at pulling off her gloves, finger by finger.

Sarah does as she is bidden.

"'Tis a tremenjous house, Miss Molly."

"Very. It is a castle, not a house."

"There's a deal of servants in it."

"Yes," absently.

"Leastways as far as I could judge with looking through the corners of my eyes as I came along them big pa.s.sages. From every door a'most there popped a head bedizened with gaudy ribbons, and I suppose the bodies was behind 'em."

"Let us hope so, Sarah." Rising, and laughing rather hysterically. "The bare idea that those mysterious heads should lack a decent finish fills me with the liveliest horror." Then, in a brighter tone, "Why, what is the matter with you, Sarah? You look as if you had fallen into the very lowest depths of despair."

"Not so much that as lonesome, miss; they all seem so rich and grand that I feel myself out of place."

Molly smiles a little. After all, in spite of the difference in their positions, it is clear to her that she and her maid share pretty much the same fears.

"There was a very proud look about the set of their caps," says Sarah, waxing more and more dismal. "Suppose they were to be uncivil to me, Miss Molly, on account of my being country-reared and my gowns not being, as it were, in the height of the fashion, what should I do? It is all this, miss, that is weighing me down."

"Suppose, on the contrary," says her mistress, with a little defiant ring in her tone, stepping to the gla.s.s and surveying her beautiful face with eager scrutiny, "you were to make a sensation, and cut out all these supercilious dames in your hall, how would it be then? Come, Sarah, let me teach you your new duties. First take my hat, now my jacket, now----"

"Shall I do your hair, Miss Molly?"

"No," with a laugh,--"I think not. I had one trial of you in that respect; it was enough."

"But all maids do their young ladies' hair, don't they, miss? I doubt they will altogether look down upon me when they find I can't do even that."

"I shall ring for you every day when I come to dress for dinner. Once in my room, who shall know whether you do my hair or not? And I faithfully promise you, Sarah, to take such pains with the performance myself as shall compel every one in the house to admire it and envy me my excellent maid. 'See Miss Ma.s.sereene's hair!' they will say, in tearful whispers. 'Oh, that I too could have a Sarah!' By the bye, call me Miss Ma.s.sereene for the future, not Miss Molly,--at least until we get home again."

"Yes, Miss--Ma.s.sereene. Law! it do sound odd," says Sarah, with a little respectful laugh, "but high-sounding too, I think. I do hope I shan't forget it, Miss Molly. Perhaps you will be good enough to remind me when I go wrong?"

A knock at the door prevents reply. Molly cries out, "Come in," and, turning, finds herself face to face with a fine old woman, who stands erect, and firm, in spite of her many years, in the doorway. She is clad in a sombre gown of brown silk, and has an old-fashioned chain round her neck that hangs far below her waist, which is by no means the most contemptible portion of her.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Ma.s.sereene; I could not resist coming to see if you were quite comfortable," she says, respectfully.

"Quite, thank you," replies Molly, in a degree puzzled. "You are"--smiling--"the housekeeper?"

"I am. And you, my dear,"--regarding her anxiously,--"are every inch an Amherst, in spite of your bonny blue eyes. You will forgive the freedom of my speech," says this old dame, with an air that would not have disgraced a d.u.c.h.ess, "when I tell you I nursed your mother."

"Ah! did you?" says Molly, flushing a little, and coming up to her eagerly, with both hands extended, to kiss the fair old face that is smiling so kindly on her. "But how could one think it? You are yet so fresh, so good to look at."

"Tut, my dear," says the old lady, mightily pleased nevertheless. "I am old enough to have nursed your grandmother. And now can I do anything for you?"

"You can," replies Molly, turning toward Sarah, who is regarding them with an expression that might at any moment mean either approval or displeasure. "This is my maid. We are both strangers here. Will you see that she is made happy?"

"Come with me, Sarah, and I will make you acquainted with our household," says Mrs. Nesbitt, promptly.