Rossmoyne Part 68

"And my eyes?"

"Are beautifully done. No one on earth could find you out," says Ulic, comfortably; after which they both laugh merrily, and, quitting the impromptu boudoir, go down to the ballroom.

Mrs. Fitzgerald shows a faint disposition to sob, as they pa.s.s out of sight. Madam O'Connor is consumed with laughter.

"I don't think I should trouble myself to open 'that poor young Ronayne's' eyes, if I were you, Edith," she says, with tears of suppressed amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes.

"He is lost!" says Mrs. Fitzgerald, with a groan; but whether she means to Bella or to decency never transpires.

CHAPTER XXIV.

How Madam O'Connor tells how lovers throve in the good old days when she was young; and Brian Desmond thrives with his love in these our days, when he and she are young.

The day is near; the darkest hour that presages the dawn has come, and still every one is dancing, and talking, and laughing, and some are alluring, by the aid of smiles and waving fans, the hearts of men.

Kit Beresford, in spite of her youth and her closely-cropped head,--which, after all is adorable in many ways,--has secured, all to her own bow, a young man from the Skillereen Barracks (a meagre town to the west of Rossmoyne). He is a _very_ young, young man, and is by this time quite _bon comarade_ with the sedate Kit, who is especially lenient with his shortcomings, and treats him as though he were nearly as old as herself.

Monica is dancing with Mr. Ryde. To do him justice, he dances very well; but whether Monica is dissatisfied with him, or whether she is tenderly regretful of the fact that at this moment she might just as well--or rather better--be dancing with another, I cannot say; but certainly her fair face is clothed with a pensive expression that heightens its beauty in a considerable degree.

"Look at that girl of Priscilla Blake's," says Madam O'Connor, suddenly, who is standing at the head of the room, surrounded, as usual, by young men. "Look at her. Was there ever such a picture? She is like a martyr at the stake. That intense expression suits her."

Brian Desmond flushes a little, and Kelly comes to the rescue.

"A martyr?" he says. "I don't think Ryde would be obliged to you if he heard you. I should name him as the martyr, if I were you. Just see how hopelessly silly--I mean, sentimental--he looks."

"Yet I think she fancies him," says Lord Rossmoyne, who is one of those men who are altogether good, respectable, and dense.

"Nonsense!" says Madam O'Connor, indignantly. "What on earth would she fancy that jackanapes for, when there are good men and true waiting for her round every corner?"

As she says this, she glances whole volumes of encouragement at Desmond, who, however, is so depressed by the fact that Monica has danced five times with Ryde, and is now dancing with him again, that he gives her no returning glance.

At this apparent coldness on his part, the blood of all the kings of Munster awakes in Madam O'Connor's breast.

"'Pon my conscience," she says, "I wouldn't give a good farthing for the lot of you, to let that girl go by! She came into Rossmoyne on the top of a hay-cart, I hear,--more luck to her, say I; for it shows the pluck in her, and the want of the sneaking fear of what he and she will say (more especially _she_) that spoils half our women. When I was her age I'd have done it myself. Rossmoyne, get out of that, till I get another look at her. I like her face. It does me good. It is so full of life _et le beaute du diable_," says Madame O'Connor, who speaks French like a native, and, be it understood, Irish too.

"_We_ like to look at her, too," says Owen Kelly.

"To look, indeed! That would be thought poor comfort in my days when a pretty woman was in question, and men were men!" says Madam, with considerable spirit. "If I were a young fellow, now, 'tis in the twinkling of an eye I'd have her from under her aunt's nose and away in a coach and four."

"The sole thing that prevents our _all_ eloping with Miss Beresford on the spot is--is--the difficulty of finding the coach and four and the blacksmith," says Mr. Kelly, with even a denser gloom upon his face than usual. Indeed, he now appears almost on the verge of tears.

"We never lost time speculating on ways and means in _those_ days," says Madame O'Connor, throwing up her head. "Whoo! Times are changed indeed since my grandfather played old Harry with the countrymen and my grandmother's father by running away with her without a word to any one, after a big ball at my great grandmother's, and that, too, when she was guarded as if she was the princess royal herself and had every man in the South on his knees to her."

"But how did he manage it?" says Desmond, laughing.

"Faith, by making the old gentleman my great-grandfather as drunk as a fiddler, on drugged potheen," says Madam O'Connor, proudly. "The butler and he did it between them; but it was as near being murder as anything you like, because they put so much of the narcotic into the whiskey that the old man didn't come to himself for three days. That's the sort of thing for _me_," says Madam, with a little flourish of her shapely hand.

"So it would be for me, too," says Kelly, mournfully. "But there's no one good enough to risk my neck for, now you have refused to have anything to do with me."

"Get along with you, you wicked boy, making fun of an old woman!" says Madam, with her gay, musical laugh. "Though," with a touch of pride, "I won't deny but I led the lads a fine dance when I was the age of that pretty child yonder."

"I wonder you aren't ashamed when you think of all the mischief you did," says Desmond, who delights in her.

"Divil a bit!" says Madam O'Connor.

"Still, I really think Ryde affects her," says Rossmoyne, who, being a dull man, has clung to the first topic promulgated.

"That's nothing, so long as she doesn't affect him," says Kelly, somewhat sharply.

"But perhaps she does; and I daresay he has money. Those English fellows generally have a reversion somewhere."

"Not a penny," says Mr. Kelly. "And, whether or no, I don't believe she would look at him."

"Not she," says Madam O'Connor.

"I don't know that. And, even allowing what you say to be true, women are not always to be won by wealth" (with a faint sigh), "and he is a very good-looking fellow."

"Is he?" says Desmond, speaking with an effort. "If flesh counts, of course he is. 'Let me have men about me that are fat; sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights.' To look at Ryde, one would fancy he slept well, not only by night but by day."

"I feel as if I was going to be sorry for Ryde presently," says Mr.

Kelly.

"Well, he's not the man for Monica," says Madam O'Connor, with conviction. "See how sorrow grows upon her lovely face. For shame! go and release her, some one, from her durance vile. Take heart of grace, go in boldly, and win her, against all odds."

"But if she will not be won?" says Desmond, smiling, but yet with an anxious expression.

"'That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man if with his tongue he cannot win a woman,'" quotes Madam, in a low voice, turning to Desmond with a broad smile of the liveliest encouragement; "and as for you, Desmond, why, if I were a girl, I'd be won by yours at once."

Desmond laughs.

"I'm sorry I'm beneath your notice now."

"Where's your uncle? Couldn't even my letter coax him here to-night?"

"Not even that. He has gone nowhere now for so many years that I think he is afraid to venture."

"Tut!" says Madam, impatiently; "because _he_ jilted a woman once is no reason why the rest of us should jilt _him_."

It is an hour later, and all the guests have gone except indeed Kit, who has been sent upstairs tired and sleepy to share Monica's room, and Terence and Brian Desmond, who with his friend Kelly are struggling into their top-coats in the hall. The rain is descending in torrents, and they are regarding with rather rueful countenances the dog-cart awaiting them outside, in which they had driven over in the sunny morning that seems impossible, when Madam O'Connor sweeps down upon them.

"Take off those coats at once," she says. "What do you mean, Brian? I wouldn't have it on my conscience to send a rat out of my house on such a night as this, unless under cover." Her conscience is Madam's strong point. She excels in it. She ofttimes swears by it! Her promise to Miss Priscilla that Desmond shall not sleep beneath her roof during Monica's stay is forgotten or laid aside, and finally, with a smile of satisfaction, she sees the two young men carried off by Ronayne for a final smoke before turning in.