Molly Bawn Part 88

"Oh, Teddy!" cries she, suddenly, covering her face with her hands, "at times, when I see certain flowers or hear some music connected with the olden days, my heart dies within me,--I lose all hope; and then I miss you sorely,--_sorely_."

Her head is on his breast by this time; his strong young arms are round her, holding her as though they would forever shield her from the pains and griefs of this world.

"I have felt just like you," he says, simply. "But after all, whatever comes, we have each other. There should be comfort in that. Had death robbed us--you of me or me of you--then we might indeed mourn. But as it is there is always hope. Can you not try to find consolation in the thought that, no matter where I may be, however far away, I am your lover forever?"

"I know it," says Molly, inexpressibly comforted.

Their trust is of the sweetest and fullest. No cruel coldness has crept in to defile their perfect love. Living as they are on a mere shadow, a faint streak of hope, that may never break into a fuller gleam, they still are almost happy. He loves her. Her heart is all his own. These are their crumbs of comfort,--sweet fragments that never fail them.

Now he leads her away from the luckless subject of their engagement altogether, and presently she is laughing over some nonsensical tale he is telling her connected with the old life. She is asking him questions, and he is telling her all he knows.

Philip has been abroad--no one knows where--for months; but suddenly, and just as mysteriously as he departed, he turned up a few days ago at Herst, where the old man is slowly fading. The winter has been a severe one, and they think his days are numbered.

The Darleys have at last come to an open rupture, and a friendly separation is being arranged.

"And what of my dear friend, Mr. Potts?" asks Molly.

"Oh, Potts! I left him behind me in Dublin. He is uncommonly well, and has been all the winter pottering--by the bye, that is an appropriate word, isn't it?--reminds one of one of his own jokes--after a girl who rather fancies him, in spite of his crimson locks, or perhaps because of them. That particular shade is, happily, rare. She has a little money, too,--at least enough to make her an heiress in Ireland."

"Poor Ireland!" says Molly. "Some day perhaps I shall go there, and judge of its eccentricities myself."

"By the bye, Molly," says Luttrell, with an impromptu air, "did you ever see the Tower?"

"Never, I am ashamed to say."

"I share your sentiments. Never have I planted my foot upon so much as the lowest step of its interminable stairs. I feel keenly the disgrace of such an acknowledgment. Shall we let another hour pa.s.s without retrieving our false position? A thousand times 'no.' Go and put your bonnet on, Molly, and we will make a day of it."

And they do make a day of it, and are as foolishly, thoughtlessly, unutterably happy as youth and love combined can be in the very face of life's disappointments.

The first flush of her joy on meeting Luttrell being over, Molly grows once more depressed and melancholy.

Misfortune has so far subdued her that now she looks upon her future, not with the glad and hopeful eyes of old, but through a tearful mist, while dwelling with a sad uncertainty upon its probable results.

When in the presence of her lover she rises out of herself, and for the time being forgets, or appears to forget, her troubles; but when away from him she grows moody and unhappy.

Could she see but a chance of ever being able to alter her present mode of life--before youth and hope are over--she would perhaps take her courage by both hands and compel it to remain. But no such chance presents itself.

To forsake Let.i.tia is to leave her and the children to starve. For how could Luttrell support them all on a miserable pittance of five hundred pounds a year? The idea is preposterous. It is the same old story over again; the same now as it was four months ago, without alteration or improvement; and, as she tells herself, will be the same four years hence.

Whatever Luttrell himself may think upon the subject he keeps within his breast, and for the first week of his stay is apparently supremely happy.

Occasionally he speaks as though their marriage is a thing that sooner or later must be consummated, and will not see that when he does so Molly maintains either a dead silence or makes some disheartening remark.

At last she can bear it no longer; and one day toward the close of his "leave," when his sentiments appear to be particularly sanguine, she makes up her mind to compel him to accept a release from what must be an interminable waiting.

"How can we go on like this," she says, bursting into tears, "you forever entreating, I forever denying? It breaks my heart, and is unfair to you. Our engagement must end. It is for your sake I speak."

"You are too kind. Will you not let me judge what is best for my own happiness?"

"No; because you are mad on this one matter."

"You wish to release me from my promise?"

"I do. For your own good."

"Then I will not be released. Because freedom would not lead to the desired result."

"It would. It must. It is useless our going on so. I can never marry.

You see yourself I cannot. If you were rich, or if I were rich, why, then----"

"If you were I would not marry you, in all probability."

"And why? Should I not be the same Molly then?" With a wan little smile. "Well, if you were rich I would marry you gladly, because I know your love for me is so great you would not feel my dear ones a burden.

But as it is--yes--yes--we must part."

"You can speak of it with admirable coolness," says he, rather savagely. "After all, at the best of times your love for me was lukewarm."

"Was it?" she says, and turns away from him hurt and offended.

"Is my love the thing of an hour," he goes on, angry with her and with himself in that he has displeased her, "that you should talk of the good to be derived from the sundering of our engagement? I wish to know what it is you mean. Do you want to leave yourself free to marry a richer man?"

"How you misjudge me?" she says, shrinking as if from a blow. "I shall never marry. All I want to do is to leave you free to"--with a sob--"to--choose whom you may."

"Very good. If it pleases you to think I am free, as you call it, be it so. Our engagement is at an end. I may marry my mother's cook to-morrow morning, if it so pleases me, without a dishonorable feeling. Is that what you want? Are you satisfied now?"

"Yes." But she is crying bitterly as she says it.

"And do you think, my sweet," whispers he, folding her in his arms, "that all this nonsense can take your image from my heart, or blot out the remembrance of all your gentle ways? For my part, I doubt it. Come, why don't you smile? You have everything your own way now; you should, therefore, be in exuberant spirits. You may be on the lookout for an elderly merchant prince; I for the dusky heiress of a Southern planter.

But I warn you, Molly, you shan't insist upon my marrying her, unless I like her better than you."

"You accept the words, but not the spirit, of my proposition," she says, sadly.

"Because it is a spiritless proposition altogether, without grace or meaning. Come, now, don't martyr yourself any more. I am free, and you are free, and we can go on loving each other all the same. It isn't half a bad arrangement, and so soothing to the conscience! I always had a remorseful feeling that I was keeping you from wedding with a duke, or a city magnate, or an archbishop. In the meantime I suppose I may be allowed to visit your Highness (in antic.i.p.ation) daily, as usual?"

"I suppose so." With hesitation.

"I wonder you didn't say no, you hard-hearted child. Not that it would have made the slightest difference, as I should have come whether you liked it or not. And now come out--do; the sun is shining, and will melt away this severe attack of the blues. Let us go into the Park and watch for our future prey,--you for your palsied millionaire, I for my swarthy West Indian."

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

"Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud."

--_Idylls of the King._