Rossmoyne Part 74

"When will it be baked? He _must_ get it to-night," says Monica, who is evidently afraid her lover, if not succored, will die of want before morning.

"Leave all to me," says Kit, flitting away from her through the gathering gloom to seek the lower region and its presiding G.o.ddess.

Leaving all to Kit means that when dinner is over, about half-past eight, the two Misses Beresford may be seen crossing the boundary that divides Moyne from Coole with anxious haste and a hot cake.

This last is hugged to Monica's breast, and is plainly causing her the greatest inconvenience. It is a _huge_ cake, and has to be carried parcelwise, being much too big for the smaller basket they had, and much too small for the bigger. But Monica--though it is heavy beyond description (though, I hope, light in every other way for the sake of Reilly's reputation) and still appallingly _hot_--trudges along with it bravely, resisting all Kit's entreaties to be allowed to share the burden.

"Who are those coming towards us through the elms down there?" says Mr.

Kelly, suddenly.

He and Brian Desmond are sitting upon a garden seat outside the dining-room windows, enjoying an after dinner cigar.

"There?" says Brian, following his glance. "Eh?--What?" There is a second pause, then, rising to his feet with much precipitancy, he flings his cigar to the winds, and, before Owen has time to recover from his astonishment at these proceedings, is well out of sight. A turn in the lawn has hidden Brian and the advancing figures from his view.

"Monica!" says Desmond, as he reaches her; "what has brought you here at this hour? My darling! how pale and tired you look!"

"She has been much perturbed," says Kit, solemnly. She has been meditating this remark for some time.

"We heard all about last night," murmurs Monica, with a sweet troubled face, out of which her eyes look into his, full of a tender pathos, like violets drowned. "And you were not at the river this afternoon, and so I came here to find you, and----" Her voice trembles ominously.

"I was obliged to be with the sergeant and the other men all day," says Desmond, hurriedly. "Do not blame me, my _love_. When I went to the river towards evening it was then of course too late. I meant to go up to Moyne when the moon was up----But what have you got there, dearest?"

pointing to the enormous thing she is still holding tightly to her breast.

She colors and hesitates; seeing which, the faithful Kit comes once more to the rescue.

"It's a cake!" she says, with a nod of her sleek head. "We knew of you being boycotted, and we thought you would be hungry, so we brought it to you. But," eyeing him with disfavor, and as one might who feels herself considerably _done_, "you are evidently not. You are looking just the same as ever, and not a bit _pinched_ or _drawn_, as people are when they are found starved in garrets."

"Yes, I was afraid you would get nothing to eat," says Monica, timidly.

There is in her lovely eyes a certain wistfulness suggestive of the idea that she hopes her cake has not been made in vain.

Mr. Desmond, seeing it, grasps the situation.

"I _am_ hungry," he says; and I hope, and think, the gentle lie will be forgiven him. "We have had nothing in the house all day but bread, and that is not appetizing."

"_There!_" says Monica, turning to Kit with sparkling eyes, "I _told_ you he wouldn't like bread."

"But," goes on Desmond, with a view to making her future happier, "to-morrow all will be right again. We know of a few faithful people who will smuggle us in all we may require. So do not be unhappy about me again. Sweetheart, what a terrible weight you have been carrying!"

"It _is_ a fine one, isn't it?" says Kit. "But give it to me now, Monica," taking the cake from her, "while you talk to Brian: when you are ready to come home, I can give it to him."

So saying, this inestimable child withdraws herself and Monica's offering to a safe distance, and pretends for the remainder of the interview an absorbing interest in some wild flowers growing near.

"I have only a moment to stay," says Monica, nervously. "I shall be missed; and now I have _seen_ you safe and unhurt," with a very sweet smile, "I shall be able to sleep. But all day long I have been haunted by timid thoughts," she sighs.

"I doubt it was a sorry day for you, that first one when we met," says Desmond, remorsefully. "I have brought you only trouble. By and by you will regret you ever knew me."

"Do not say that. I have no regrets,--none! Even if--if--we cannot be--"

reddening vividly, "more to each other than we are now, I can still be happy in the thought that you love me and are near me, and that I can sometimes, in spite of _every one_--" with a recklessness that sits very funnily upon her--"see you."

"But we shall be more to each other, Monica," says the young man, earnestly. "We shall be all in all to each other. No human being has the right to separate two hearts for the sake of a mere whim."

"There are so many things. But now, indeed, I must go. Good-night."

"Good-night, my own. But I shall go with you as far as the boundary fence."

"No, no, indeed!"

"But indeed I shall!" and of course he has his own way, and parts from her and Kit there, and answers her parting injunction "to take care of himself for _her_ sake"--this last very low--with a lingering lover's kiss, and watches the two slight figures with a beating heart, until they are out of sight.

Then, picking up the cake, he goes back again to where Mr. Kelly is still awaiting him.

CHAPTER XXVII.

How Monica's gift receives due attention, and is thoroughly appreciated; and how a torpedo falls into a morning-room at Moyne.

"Well," says Kelly, "was it Miss Beresford?"

"Yes, and her sister. I saw them back to the boundary fence, but they would let me go no farther. It was rather----"

"What on earth have you got there?" says his friend, sticking his eyegla.s.s in his eye, and staring with bent head and some suspicion at the mysterious thing in Desmond's arms.

"This! oh, ah! yes." Then, desperately, "Kelly, if you laugh at it I'll never forgive you."

Mr. Kelly drops the eyegla.s.s and looks afflicted.

"My dear fellow, do I _ever_ laugh?" he says.

"Well, it--it's _a cake_!" says Brian, who (in spite of the warning just delivered to his friend) is now indulging in wild mirth and can scarcely speak for laughter. "She--Monica--heard we were boycotted, and, thinking we were starving, the dear angel! she brought this up herself to us."

"Desmond, I'm ashamed of you," says Kelly, who has not moved a muscle of his face. "Such an action as hers calls for reverence,--not this unseemly gayety."

"It's not the action I'm laughing at," says Brian, still convulsed; "it's the _cake_. The action is divine--the cake hot!" Here he sinks upon the garden-seat again, as if exhausted, and dries his eyes.

"I see nothing to laugh at in that, either. It seems an excellent cake, and, as you say, _hot_," says Mr. Kelly, prodding it meditatively with his finger,--"a merit in a cake of this sort, I should say; and nicely browned, too, as far as I can see. I can see, too, that it is quite the biggest cake I ever made acquaintance with. _Another_ merit! Did she carry it herself all the way?"

"All the way, poor darling! and just because she was afraid we should be hungry." Mr. Desmond's laughter has subsided, and he now looks rather absent. "It quite weighed her down," he says, in a low tone.

"Poor child! I said yesterday, you remember, that I thought her one of the nicest girls I have met. The cake has finished me. I think her now _the_ nicest." He says this with a cheerful conscience. Between girls and widows a deep margin lies.

"But what are we to do with it?" says Brian, regarding the cake, which is now lying upon the garden seat, with a puzzled expression.

"Say a repentant tenant--no, that sounds like tautology--say a remorseful tenant brought it to you."