Rossmoyne Part 32

Once only during this homeward drive something occurs to disturb the serenity of the Misses Blake. Kit, in one of her merry sallies, has touched upon Miss Fitzgerald; whereupon Aunt Priscilla, mindful of that late and lingering adieu of Terence, says, suddenly,--

"And how do _you_ like Miss Fitzgerald, Terence?"

"She's delightful, aunt!" says the stricken Terence, enthusiastically.

"Perfectly enchanting! You never met so nice a girl!"

"Oh, yes! I think I have, Terence," says Miss Priscilla, freezingly. "I am, indeed, _sure_ I have."

"There's something about her right down fetching," says Mr. Beresford, giving himself airs. "Something--er--_there_, but difficult to describe."

"A 'je ne sais quoi young man,'" quotes the younger Miss Beresford, with a sneer. "She's tall enough to be one, at any rate. She is a horrid girl I think."

"You're jealous," says Terence, contemptuously. "Because you know you will never be half as good to look at."

"If I thought that," says Kit, growing very red, "I'd commit suicide."

"Tut! You are too silly a child to be argued with," says Terence, in a tone that is not to be borne.

Kit, rising in her seat, prepares for battle, and is indeed about to hurl a scathing rebuke upon him, when Miss Priscilla interrupts her.

"What is this great charm you see in Miss Fitzgerald, Terence?" she asks slowly.

"That is just what I cannot describe, aunt."

"I should think you couldn't, indeed!" puts in Kit, wrathfully.

"But, as I said before, she is delightful."

"She _may_ be," says Priscilla, the most d.a.m.ning doubt in her tone. "She _may_ be, my dear. Forbid that I should deny it! But there are some delightful people, Terence, that are not good for us."

Somehow, after this, conversation dwindles until it is gone. Terence sulks; Monica moons; Kit ponders; the Miss Blake snooze: and so at last home is reached.

CHAPTER XI.

How Kit sees a Vision, and being exhorted thereto by it, pleads a certain cause with great success.

It is ten o'clock, and as lovely a night as ever overhung the earth. The moon is at its fullest, the wind has fallen, all is calm as heaven itself, through which Dictynna's unclouded grandeur rolls.

The Misses Blake, fatigued by their unusual dissipation, ordered an early rout an hour agone, whereby bedroom candlesticks were in demand at nine or half-past nine o'clock.

Now, in Monica's room Kit is standing by the open window gazing in rapt admiration at the dew spangled garden beneath. Like diamonds glitter the gra.s.s and the flowers beneath the kiss of the gra.s.s and the queen of night.

Moonbeams are playing in the roses, and nestling in the lilies, and rocking to and fro upon the bosom of the stream.

There is a peace unspeakable on all around. One holds one's breath and feels a longing painful in its intensity as one drinks in the beauty of the earth and sky. 'Twere _heaven_ to be a.s.sured of love on such a night as this.

Stars make the vault above so fine that all the world, me-thinks, should be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun. There is a rush of feeling in the air,--a promise of better things to come,--of hope, of glad desire, of sweet love perfected!

"How lovely a night it is!" says Kit, leaning far out of the window, and gazing westward. She is at heart a born artist, with a mind, indeed, too full of strange, weird thoughts at times to augur well for the happiness of her future. Like many of her Irish race, she is dreamy, poetical,--intense at one moment, gay, wild impulsive the next.

"See what a flood of light there is on everything!" she says. "'_Bathed_ in moonlight,' what a good thought was that. Monica, when I am as old as you, in a very few short years I shall be a poet."

"No, you won't, darling: you will be a musician. See what fairies lie beneath your fingers even now when you touch the piano or violin; be content, then, with your great gift, which most surely _is_ yours. And to me, indeed, it seems a grander thing to thrill and enchain and draw to your feet all hearts by the power of harmony that dwells within you, than by the divine gift of song that poets have."

"But their songs _are_ harmony," says the child, turning quickly to her.

"Ay, the interpretation of it, but you have its very breath. No; search the world over, and you will find nothing so powerful to affect the souls of all as music."

"Well some day I shall want to do something," says Kit, vaguely; and then she turns to the window again, and lets her mind wander and lose itself in a mute sonata to the fair Isis throned above.

"It draws me," she says, presently, rising slowly and addressing Monica, but always with her gaze fixed upon the sleeping garden down below. "It is so bright,--so clear."

"What, Kit?"

"The moonlight. I must," restlessly, "go down into it for a little moment, or I shall not sleep through longing for it."

"But the doors are closed, my dearest, and Aunt Priscilla is in bed, and so are the servants."

"So much the better. I can draw the bolts myself without being questioned. You said just now," gayly, "I have a fairy beneath my fingers. I think I have a moon-fairy in my heart, because I love it so."

"Stay here with me, then, and worship it sensibly from my window."

"What! do you look for sense in 'moon-struck madness'? No; I shall go down to my scented garden. I have a fancy I cannot conquer to walk into that tiny flame-white path of moonlight over there near the hedge. Do you see it?"

"Yes. Well, go, if t.i.tania calls you, but soon return, and bring me a lily,--I, too, have a fancy, you see,--a tall lily, fresh with dew and moonshine."

"You shall have the tallest, the prettiest I can find," says Kit from the doorway, where she stands framed unknowingly, looking such a slender, ethereal creature, with eyes too large for her small face, that Monica, with a sudden pang of fear, goes swiftly up to her, and, pressing her to her heart, holds her so for a moment.

"I know what you are thinking now," says Kit, with another laugh,--"that I shall die early."

"Kit! Kit!"

"Yes. Isn't it strange? I can read most people's thoughts. But be happy about me. I look fragile, I know, but I shall not die until I am quite a respectable age. Not a hideous age, you will understand, but with my hair and my teeth intact. One keeps one's hair until forty, doesn't one?"

"I don't know. I'm not forty," says Monica. "But hurry, hurry out of the garden, because the dew is falling."

Down the dark staircase, through the darker halls, into the brilliant moonlight, goes Kit. The wind, soft as satin, plays about her pretty brows and nestles through her hair, rewarding itself thus for its enforced quiet of an hour ago. Revelling in the freedom she has gained, Kit enters the garden and looks lovingly around upon her companions,--the flowers.

Who would sleep when beauty such as this is flung broadcast upon the earth, waiting for man to feast his slothful eyes upon it?

Lingeringly, tenderly, Kit pa.s.ses by each slumbering blossom, or gazes into each drowsy bell, until the moonlit patch of gra.s.s she had pointed out to Monica is at last reached. Here she stands in shadow, glancing with coy delight at the fairyland beyond. Then she plunges into it, and looks a veritable fairy herself, slim, and tall, and beautiful, and more than worthy of the wand she lacks.

Walking straight up her silver path, she goes to where the lilies grow, in a bed close by the hedge. But, before she comes to them, she notes in the hedge itself a wild convolvulus, and just a little beyond it a wild dog-rose, parent of all roses. She stays to pluck them, and then--