Molly Bawn Part 38

Next day at luncheon Mr. Amherst, having carefully mapped out one of his agreeable little surprises, and having selected a moment when every one is present, says to her, with a wicked gleam of antic.i.p.ative amus.e.m.e.nt in his cunning old eyes:

"Sir Penthony is in England."

Although she has neither hint nor warning of what is coming, Lady Stafford is a match for him. Mr. Potts's intelligence of the evening before stands her now in good stead.

"Indeed!" she says, without betraying any former knowledge, turning eyes of the calmest upon him; "you surprise me. Tired so soon of Egyptian sphinxes! I always knew he had no taste. I hope he is quite well. I suppose you heard from him?"

"Yes. He is well, but evidently pines for home quarters and old friends. Thinking you would like to see him after so long a separation, I have invited him here. You--you don't object?"

"I?" says her ladyship, promptly, reddening, but laughing too very successfully. "Now, why should I object? On the contrary, I shall be charmed; he will be quite an acquisition. If I remember rightly,"--with a little affected drooping of the lids,--"he is a very handsome man, and, I hear, amusing."

Mr. Amherst, foiled in his amiable intention of drawing confusion on the head of somebody, subsides into a grunt and his easy-chair. To have gone to all this trouble for nothing, to have invited secretly this man, who interests him not at all, in hopes of a little excitement, and to have those hopes frustrated, disgusts him.

Yet, after all, there will, there must be some amus.e.m.e.nt in store for him, in watching the meeting between this strange pair. He at least may not prove as cool and indifferent as his pretty wife.

"He will be here to dinner to-day," he says, grumpishly, knowing that all around him are inwardly rejoicing at his defeat.

This is a thunder-bolt, though he is too much disheartened by his first defeat to notice it. Lady Stafford grows several shades paler, and--luncheon being at an end--rises hurriedly. Going toward the door, she glances back, and draws Molly by a look to her side.

"Come with me," she says; "I must speak to some one, and to you before any of the others."

When they have reached Cecil's pretty sitting-room, off which her bedroom opens, the first thing her ladyship does is to subside into a seat and laugh a little.

"It is like a play," she says, "the idea of his coming down here, to find _me_ before him. It will be a surprise; for I would swear that horrible old man never told him of my being in the house, or he would not have come. Am I talking Greek to you, Molly? You know my story, surely?"

"I have heard something of it--not much--from Mr. Luttrell," says Molly, truthfully.

"It is a curious one, is it not? and one not easily matched. It all came of that horrible will. Could there be anything more stupid than for an old man to depart this life and leave behind him a doc.u.ment binding two young people in such a way as makes it 'do or die' with them? I had never seen my cousin in all my life, and he had never seen me; yet we were compelled at a moment's notice to marry each other or forfeit a dazzling fortune."

"Why could you not divide it?"

"Because the lawyers said we couldn't. Lawyers are always aggressive.

My great-uncle had particularly declared it should not be divided. It was to be all or none, and whichever of us refused to marry the other got nothing. And there was so much!" says her ladyship, with an expressive sigh.

"It was a hard case," Molly says, with deep sympathy.

"It was. Yet, as I managed it, it wasn't half so bad. Now, I dare say many women would have gone into violent hysterics, would have driven their relations to the verge of despair and the shivering bridegroom to the brink of delirious joy, and then given in,--married the man, lived with him, and been miserable ever after. But not I."

Here she pauses, charmed at her own superior wisdom, and, leaning back in her chair, with a contented smile, puts the tips of her fingers together daintily.

"Well, and you?" says Molly, feeling intensely interested.

"I? I just reviewed the case calmly. I saw it was a great deal of money,--too much to hesitate about,--too much also to make it likely a man would dream of resigning it for the sake of a woman more or less.

So I wrote to my cousin explaining that, as we had never known each other, there could be very little love lost between us, and that I saw no necessity why we ever _should_ know each other,--and that I was quite willing to marry him, and take a third of the money, if he would allow me to be as little to him in the future as I was in the present, by drawing up a formal deed of separation, to be put in force at the church-door, or the door of any room where the marriage ceremony should be performed."

"Well?"

"Well, I don't know how it would have been but that, to aid my request, I inclosed a photograph of our parlormaid (one of the ugliest women it has ever been my misfortune to see), got up in her best black silk, minus the cap, and with a flaming gold chain round her neck,--you know the sort of thing,--and I never said who it was."

"Oh, Cecil, how could you?"

"How couldn't I? you mean. And, after all, my crime was of the pa.s.sive order; I merely sent the picture, without saying anything. How could I help it if he mistook me for Mary Jane? Besides, I was fighting for dear life, and all is fair in love and war. I could not put up with the whims and caprices of a man to whom I was indifferent."

"Did you know he had whims and caprices?"

"Molly," says Lady Stafford, slowly, with a fine show of pity, "you are disgracefully young: cure yourself, my dear, as fast as ever you can, and as a first lesson take this to heart: if ever there was a mortal man born upon this earth without caprices it must have been in the year one, because no one that I have met knows anything about him."

"Well, for the matter of that," says Molly, laughing, "I don't suppose I should like a perfect man, even if I did chance to meet him. By all accounts they are stilted, disagreeable people, with a talent for making everybody else seem small. But go on with your story. What was his reply?"

"He agreed cordially to all my suggestions, named a very handsome sum as my portion, swore by all that was honorable he would never interfere with me in any way, was evidently ready to promise anything, and--sent me back my parlor-maid. Was not that insulting?"

"But when he came to marry you he must have seen you?"

"Scarcely. I decided on having the wedding in our drawing-room, and wrote again to say it would greatly convenience my cousin and myself (I lived with an old cousin) if he would not come down until the very morning of the wedding. Need I say he grasped at this proposition also?

I was dressed and ready for my wedding by the time he arrived, and shook hands with him with my veil down. You may be sure I had secured a very thick one."

"Do you mean to tell me," says Molly, rising in her excitement, "that he never asked you to raise your veil?"

"Never, my dear. I a.s.sure you the 'best man' he brought down with him was by far the more curious of the two. But then, you must remember, Sir Penthony had seen my picture." Here Cecil goes off into a hearty burst of laughter. "If you had seen that maid once, my dear, you would not have been ambitious of a second view."

"Still I never heard of anything so cold, so unnatural," says Miss Ma.s.sereene, in high disgust. "I declare I would have broken off with him then and there, had it been me."

"Not if you lived with my cousin Amelia, feeling yourself a dependent on her bounty. She was a startling instance of how a woman _can_ worry and torment. The very thought of her makes my heart sore in my body and chills my blood to this day. I rejoice to say she is no more."

"Well, you got married?"

"Yes, in Amelia's drawing-room. I had a little gold band put on my third finger, I had a cold shake-hands from my husband, a sympathetic one from his groomsman, and then found myself once more alone, with a t.i.tle and plenty of money, and--that's all."

"What was his friend's name?"

"Talbot Lowry. He lives about three miles from here, and"--with an airy laugh--"is rather too fond of me."

"What a strange story!" says Molly, regarding her wistfully. "Do you never wish you had married some one you loved?"

"I never do," gayly. "Don't look to me for sentiment, Molly, because I am utterly devoid of it. I know I suffer in your estimation by this confession, but it is the simple truth. I don't wish for anything. And yet"--pausing suddenly--"I do. I have been wishing for something ever since that old person down-stairs tried to take me back this morning, and failed so egregiously."

"And your wish is----"

"That I could make my husband fall madly in love with me. Oh, Molly, what a revenge that would be! And why should he not, indeed?" Going over to a gla.s.s and gazing earnestly at herself. "I am pretty,--very pretty, I think. Speak, Molly, and encourage me."

"You know you are lovely," says Molly, in such good faith that Cecil kisses her on the spot. "But what if you should fall in love with him?"

"Perhaps I have done so long ago," her ladyship replies, in a tone impossible to translate, being still intent on the contemplation of her many charms. Then, quickly, "No, no, Molly, I am fire-proof."

"Yet any day you may meet some one to whom you must give your love."

"Not a bit of it. I should despise myself forever if I once found myself letting my pulse beat half a second faster for one man than for another."