Molly Bawn Part 89

The very next morning brings Molly the news of her grandfather's death.

He had died quietly in his chair the day before without a sign, and without one near him. As he had lived, so had he died--alone.

The news conveyed by Mr. Buscarlet shocks Molly greatly, and causes her, if not actual sorrow, at least a keen regret. To have him die thus, without reconciliation or one word of forgiveness,--to have him go from this world to the next, hard of heart and unrelenting, saddens her for his soul's sake.

The funeral is to be on Thursday, and this is Tuesday. So Mr. Buscarlet writes, and adds that, by express desire of Mr. Amherst, the will is to be opened and read immediately after the funeral before all those who spent last autumn in his house. "Your presence," writes the attorney, "is particularly desired."

In the afternoon Lady Stafford drops in, laden, as usual, with golden grain (like the Argosy), in the shape of cakes and sweetmeats for the children, who look upon her with much reverence in the light of a modern and much-improved Santa Claus.

"I see you have heard of your grandfather's death by your face," she says, gravely. "Here, children,"--throwing them their several packages,--"take your property and run away while I have a chat with mamma and Auntie Molly."

"Teddy brought us such nice sugar cigars yesterday," says Renee, who, in her black frock and white pinafore and golden locks, looks perfectly angelic: "only I was sorry they weren't real; the fire at the end didn't burn one bit."

"How do you know?"

"Because"--with an enchanting smile--"I put it on Daisy's hand, to see if it would, and it wouldn't; and wasn't it a pity?"

"It was, indeed. I am sure Daisy sympathizes with your grief. There, go away, you blood-thirsty child; we are very busy."

While the children, in some remote corner of the house, are growing gradually happier and stickier, their elders discuss the last new topic.

"I received a letter this morning," Cecil says, "summoning me to Herst, to hear the will read. You, too, I suppose?"

"Yes; though why I don't know."

"I am sure he has left you something. You are his grandchild. It would be unkind of him and most unjust to leave you out altogether, once having acknowledged you."

"You forget our estrangement."

"Nevertheless, something tells me there is a legacy in store for you. I shall go down to-morrow night, and you had better come with me."

"Very well," says Molly, indifferently.

At Herst, in spite of howling winds and drenching showers, Nature is spreading abroad in haste its countless charms. Earth, struggling disdainfully with its worn-out garb, is striving to change its brown garment for one of dazzling green. Violets, primroses, all the myriad joys of spring, are sweetening the air with a thousand perfumes.

Within the house everything is subdued and hushed, as must be when the master lies low. The servants walk on tiptoe; the common smile is checked; conversation dwindles into compressed whispers, as though they fear by ordinary noise to bring to life again the unloved departed. All is gloom and insincere melancholy.

Cecil and Molly, traveling down together, find Mrs. Darley, minus her husband, has arrived before them. She is as delicately afflicted, as properly distressed, as might be expected; indeed, so faithfully, and with such perfect belief in her own powers, does she perform the pensive _role_, that she fails not to create real admiration in the hearts of her beholders. Molly is especially struck, and knows some natural regret that it is beyond _her_ either to feel or look the part.

Marcia, thinking it wisdom to keep herself invisible, maintains a strict seclusion. The hour of her triumph approaches; she hardly dares let others see the irrepressible exultation that her own heart knows.

Philip has been absent since the morning; so Molly and Lady Stafford dine in the latter's old sitting-room alone, and, confessing as the hours grow late to an unmistakable dread of the "uncanny," sleep together, with a view to self-support.

About one o'clock next day all is over. Mr. Amherst has been consigned to his last resting-place,--a tomb unstained by any tears. At three the will is to be read.

Coming out of her room in the early part of the afternoon, Cecil meets unexpectedly with Mr. Potts, who is meandering in a depressed and aimless fashion all over the house.

"You here, Plantagenet! Why, I thought you married to some fascinating damsel in the Emerald Isle," she cannot help saying in a low voice, giving him her hand. She is glad to see his ugly, good-humored, comical face in the gloomy house, although it _is_ surmounted by his offending hair.

"So I was,--very near it," replies he, modestly, in the same suppressed whisper. "You never knew such a narrow escape as I had: they were determined to marry me----"

"'They'! You terrify me. How many of them? I had no idea they were so bad as that,--even in Ireland."

"Oh, I mean the girl and her father. It was as near a thing as possible; in fact, it took me all I knew to get out of it."

"I'm not surprised at that," says Cecil, with a short but comprehensive glance at her companion's cheerful but rather indistinct features.

"I don't exactly mean it was my personal appearance was the attraction," he returns, feeling a strong inclination to explode with laughter, as is his habit on all occasions, but quickly suppressing the desire, as being wicked under the circ.u.mstances. The horror of death has not yet vanished from among them. "It was my family they were after,--birth, you know,--and that. Fact is, she wasn't up to the mark,--wasn't good enough. Not but that she was a nice-looking girl, and had a lovely brogue. She had money too--and she had a--father! Such a father! I think I could have stood the brogue, but I could _not_ stand the father."

"But why? Was he a lunatic? Or perhaps a Home-ruler?"

"No,"--simply,--"he was a tailor. When first I met Miss O'Rourke she told me her paternal relative had some appointment in the Castle. So he had. In his youthful days he had been appointed tailor to his Excellency. It wasn't a bad appointment, I dare say; but I confess I didn't see it."

"It was a lucky escape. It would take a good deal of money to make me forget the broadcloth. Are you coming down-stairs now? I dare say we ought to be a.s.sembling."

"It is rather too early, I am afraid. I wish it was all done with, and I a hundred miles away from the place. The whole affair has made me downright melancholy. I hate funerals: they don't agree with me."

"Nor yet weddings, as it seems. Well, I shall be as glad as you to quit Herst once we have installed Miss Amherst as its mistress."

"Why not Shadwell as its master?"

"If I were a horrible betting-man," says Cecil, "I should put all my money upon Marcia. I do not think Mr. Amherst cared for Philip.

However, we shall see. And"--in a yet lower tone--"I hope he has not altogether forgotten Molly."

"I hope not indeed. But he was a strange old man. To forget Miss Ma.s.sereene----" Here he breathes a profound sigh.

"Don't sigh, Plantagenet: think of Miss O'Rourke," says Cecil, unkindly, leaving him.

One by one, and without so much as an ordinary "How d'ye do?" they have all slipped into the dining-room. The men have a.s.sumed a morose air, which they fondly believe to be indicative of melancholy; the women, being by nature more hypocritical, present a more natural and suitable appearance. All are seated in sombre garments and dead silence.

Marcia, in c.r.a.pe and silk of elaborate design, is looking calm but full of decorous grief. Philip--who has grown almost emaciated during these past months--is the only one who wears successfully an impression of the most stolid indifference. He is leaning against one of the windows, gazing out upon the rich lands and wooded fields which so soon will be either all his or nothing to him. After the first swift glance of recognition he has taken no notice of Molly, nor she of him. A shuddering aversion fills her toward him, a distaste bordering on horror. His very pallor, the ill-disguised misery of his whole appearance,--which he seeks but vainly to conceal under a cold and sneering exterior,--only adds to her dislike.

A sickening remembrance of their last meeting in the wood at Brooklyn makes her turn away from him with palpable meaning on his entrance, adding thereby one pang the more to the bitterness of his regret. The meeting is to her a trial,--to him an agony harder to endure than he had even imagined.

Feeling strangely out of place and nervous, and saddened by memories of happy days spent in this very room so short a time ago, Molly has taken a seat a little apart from the rest, and sits with loosely-folded hands upon her knees, her head bent slightly downward.

Cecil, seeing the dejection of her att.i.tude, leaves her own place, and, drawing a chair close to hers, takes one of her hands softly between her own.

Then the door opens, and Mr. Buscarlet, with a sufficiently subdued though rather triumphant and consequential air, enters.

He bows obsequiously to Marcia, who barely returns the salute.

Detestable little man! She finds some consolation in the thought that at all events his time is nearly over; that probably--nay, surely--he is now about to administer law for the last time at Herst.

He bows in silence to the rest of the company,--with marked deference to Miss Ma.s.sereene,--and then involuntarily each one stirs in his or her seat and settles down to hear the will read.