The Light of Scarthey Part 33

"Tut, tut, tut, now," observed the artful person in tones of deep commiseration. "Ah well, Rupert's a poor creature which ever side he turns up. Will you go now, my child, and fetch me the letters I left on the drawing-room table? Isn't it like me to spend half the morning writing them and leave them down there after all!"

Molly rose unwillingly, threw her whip on the bed, her hat on the floor; and mistily concerned over Tanty's air of irrepressible and pleasurable excitement, walked out of the room, bestowing as she pa.s.sed her long pier gla.s.s a moody glance at her own glowering beauty.

"What's the use of _you_?" she muttered to herself, "Anybody can fetch and carry for old aunts and look out of windows on leafless trees!"

The way to the drawing-room was through the library. As Molly, immersed in her reflections, pa.s.sed along this room, she stopped with a violent start on perceiving the figure of Sir Adrian, a tall silhouette against the cold light of the window. As she came upon him, her face was fully illumined, and there was a glorious tale-telling in the widening of her eyes and the warm flush that mounted to her cheek that on the instant scattered in the man's mind all wondering doubts.

A rush of tenderness filled him at one sweep, head and heart, to the core.

"Molly!" he cried, panting; and then with halting voice as she advanced a pace and stood with mouth parted and brilliant expectant eyes: "You took away all light and warmth with you when you left my lonely dwelling. I tried to take up my life there, but----"

"But you have come back--for me?" And drawn by his extended hands she advanced, her burning gaze fixed upon his.

"I dared not think of seeing you again," he murmured, clasping her hands; "yet my return ... pleases you?"

"Yes."

Thus was crowned this strange wooing, was clenched a life's union, based upon either side on fascinating unrealities.

She was drawn into his arms; and against his heart she lay, shaking with little shivers of delight, looking into the n.o.ble face bent so lovingly over hers, her mind floating between unconscious exultation and languorous joy.

For a long while without a word he held her thus on his strong arm, gazing with a rending conflict of rapture and anguish on the beautiful image of his life's love, until his eyes were dimmed with rising tears. Then he slowly stooped over the up-turned face, and as she dropped her lids with a faint smile, kissed her lips.

There came a warning rattle at the door handle, and Molly, disengaging herself softly from her betrothed's embrace, but still retaining his arm, turned to witness the entrance of Miss O'Donoghue and Mr.

Landale.

On the former's face, under a feigned expression of surprise, now expanded itself in effulgence the plenitude of that satisfaction which had been dawning there ever since her return from the island.

Rupert held himself well in hand. He halted, it is true, for an instant at the first sight of Sir Adrian and Molly, and put his handkerchief furtively to his forehead to wipe the sudden cold sweat which broke out upon it. But the hesitation was so momentary as to pa.s.s unperceived; and if his countenance, as he advanced again, bore an expression of disapproval, it was at once dignified and restrained.

"So you are there, Molly," exclaimed the old lady with inimitable airiness. "Just imagine, my dear, I had those letters in my pocket all the while, after all. You did not find them, did you?"

But Adrian, still retaining the little hand on his arm, came forward slowly and broke through the incipient flow.

"Aunt Rose," said he in a voice still veiled by emotion, "I know your kind heart will rejoice with me, although you may not be so surprised, as no doubt Rupert will be, at the news we have for you, Molly and I."

"You are right, Adrian," interrupted Rupert gravely, "to any who know your life and _your past_ as I do, the news you seem to have for us must seem strange indeed. So strange that you will excuse me if I withhold congratulations. For, if I mistake not," he added, with a delicately shaded change of tone to sympathetic courtesy, and slightly turning his handsome face towards Molly, "I a.s.sume that my fair cousin de Savenaye has even but now promised to be my sister, Lady Landale."

Sir Adrian who, softened by the emotion of this wonderful hour, had made a movement to grasp his brother's hand, but had checked himself with a pa.s.sionate movement of anger, instantly restrained, as the overt impertinence of the first words fell on his ears, here looked with a shadowing anxiety at the girl's face.

But Molly, who could never withhold the lash of her tongue when Rupert gave the slightest opening, immediately acknowledged her enemy's courtly bow with sauciness.

"What! No congratulations from the model brother? Not even a word of thanks to Molly de Savenaye for bringing the truant to his home at last? But you malign yourself, my dear Rupert. I believe 'tis but excess of joy that ties your tongue."

With gleaming smile Mr. Landale would have opposed this direct thrust by some parry of polished insult; but he met his elder's commanding glance, remembered his parting words on two previous occasions, and wisely abstained, contenting himself with another slight bow and a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.

At the same time Miss O'Donoghue, with an odd mixture of farcically pretended astonishment and genuine triumph, fell on the girl's neck.

"It is possible, soul of my heart, my sweet child--I can't believe it--though I vow I knew it all along! So I am to see my two favourites made one by holy matrimony!" punctuating her exclamation with kisses on the fair young face, and wildly seeking in s.p.a.ce with her dried-up old fingers to meet Adrian's hand. "I, the one barren stock of the O'Donoghues, shall see my sister's children re-united. Ah, Adrian, what a beautiful coat this will make for you to hand to your children!

O'Donoghue, Landale, Kermelegan, Savenaye--eighteen quarters with this heiress alone, Adrian child, for the descendants of Landale of Pulwick!" And Miss O'Donoghue, overcome by this culminating vision of happiness and perfection, fairly burst into tears.

In the midst of this scene, Mr. Landale, after listening mockingly for a few instants, retired with ostentatious discretion.

Later in the day, as Madeleine bent her pretty ears, dutifully yet with wandering attention, to Molly's gay prognostications concerning Pulwick under her sway; whilst the servants in the hall, pantry and kitchen discussed the great news which, by some incomprehensible agency, spread with torrent-like swiftness through the whole estate; while Miss O'Donoghue was feverishly busy with the correspondence which was to disseminate far and wide the world's knowledge of the happy betrothal, Sir Adrian met his brother walking meditatively along the winding path of the garden, flicking with the loop of his crop the border of evergreens as he went. From their room, Molly and Madeleine, ensconced in the deep window-seat, could see the meeting.

"How I should like to hear," said Molly. "I know this supple wretch will be full of Adrian's folly in marrying me--first, because, from the Rupertian point of view, it is a disastrous thing that his elder should marry at all; and secondly, because Molly, mistress at Pulwick Priory, means a very queer position indeed for Mr. Rupert Landale. How I wish my spirit could fly into Adrian's head just for a moment!

Adrian is too indulgent. It requires a Molly to deal with such impertinence."

"Indeed you are unjust with our cousin," said Madeleine, gently. "Why this hatred? I cannot understand."

"No, of course not, Madeleine. Rupert is charming--with you. I am not blind. But take care he does not find out _your_ secret, miss. Oh, I don't ask you any more about it. But if he ever does--_gare, ma chere_."

But at the present juncture, Molly's estimate of Sir Adrian's mood was mistaken. His love of peace, which amounted to a well-known weakness where he alone was concerned, weighed not a feather in the balance when such an interest as that now engaged was at stake.

As a matter of fact, Rupert Landale was to be taken by surprise again, that day, and again not pleasantly. On noticing his brother's approach, he stopped his angry flickings, and slowly moved to meet him. At first they walked side by side in silence. Presently Sir Adrian began:

"Rupert," he said gravely, "after our first interview to-day, it was my intention to have begged your pardon for a certain roughness in my manner which I should have controlled and which you resented. I would have done so, had you allowed me, at that moment when I announced my forthcoming marriage and my heart was full of good-will to all, especially to you. Now, on the contrary, to re-establish at least that outward harmony without which life in common would be impossible, I expect from you some expression of regret for your behaviour."

The first part of his brother's say was so well in accordance with his more habitual mood, that Mr. Landale had already sketched his equally habitual deprecating smile; but the conclusion changed the entire standpoint of their relations.

"An expression of regret--from _me_?" cried he, exaggerating his astonishment almost to mockery.

"From any one but my brother," said Adrian, with a slight but perceptible hardening in his tone, "I should say an apology for an impertinence."

Mr. Landale, now genuinely taken aback, turned a little pale and halted abruptly.

"Adrian, Adrian!" he retorted, quickly. "This is one of your mad moments. I do not understand."

"No, brother, I am not mad, and never have been, dearly as you would wish me to be so in reality--since Death would have none of me. But though you know this yourself but too well, you have never understood me really. Now listen--once for all. Try and see our positions as they are: perhaps then matters will go more pleasantly in the future for you as well as for me."

Mr. Landale looked keenly at the speaker's face for a second, and then without a word resumed his walk, while Sir Adrian by his side pursued with quiet emphasis:

"When I returned, from the other world so to speak, at least from your point of view (one which I fully understood), I found that this very return was nothing short of a calamity for all that remained of my kin. I had it in my power to reduce that misfortune to a great extent.

You loved the position--that worldly estimation, that fortune, all those circ.u.mstances which, with perfect moral right, you had hitherto enjoyed. They presented little attraction to me. Moreover, there were many reasons, which I am quite aware you know, that made this very house of mine a dismal dwelling for me. You see I have no wish to give too generous a colour to my motives, too self-denying a character to the benefits I conferred upon you. But, as far as you are concerned, they were benefits. For them I received no grat.i.tude; but as I did not expect grat.i.tude it matters little. I might, however, have expected at least that you should be neutral, not directly hostile to me----Pray let me finish" (in antic.i.p.ation of a rising interruption from his companion), "I shall soon have done, and you will see that I am not merely recriminating. Hostile you have been, and are now. So long as the position you a.s.sumed towards me only bore on our own relations, I acquiesced: you had so much more to lose than I could gain by resenting your hidden antagonism. I held you, so to speak, in the hollow of my hand; I could afford to pa.s.s over it all.

Moreover, I had chosen my own path, which was nothing if not peaceful.

I say, you always were hostile to me; you have been so, more than ever since the arrival of Cecile de Savenaye's children. You were, however, grievously mistaken if you thought--I verily believe you did--that I did not realise the true motives that prompted you to keep me away from them.--I loved them as their mother's children; I love Molly with a sort of love I myself do not understand, but deep enough for all its strangeness. Yet I submitted to your reasoning, to your plausible representations of the disastrous effects of my presence. I went back to my solitude because it never entered my mind that it could be in my power to help their happiness; you indeed had actually persuaded me of the contrary, as you know, and I myself thought it better to break the unfortunate spell that was cast on me. Unfortunate I thought it, but it has proved far otherwise."

They had reached the end of the alley, and as they turned back, facing each other for a moment, Sir Adrian noticed the evil smile playing upon his brothers lips.

"It has proved otherwise," he repeated. "How I came to change my views, I daresay you have guessed, for you have, of late, kept a good watch on your mad brother, Rupert. At any rate you know what has come to pa.s.s. Now I desire you to understand this clearly--interference with me as matters stand means interference with Molly: and as such I must, and shall, resent it."

"Well, Adrian, and what have I done _now_?" was Mr. Landale's quiet reply. He turned a gravely attentive, innocently injured countenance to the paling light.

"When I said you did not understand me," returned Sir Adrian with undiminished firmness; "when I said you owed me some expression of regret, it was to warn you never again to a.s.sume the tone of insinuation and sarcasm to me, which you permitted yourself to-day in the presence of Molly. You could not restrain this long habit of censuring, of unwarrantable and impertinent criticism, of your elder, and when you referred to my past, Molly could not but be offended by the mockery of your tones. Moreover, you took upon yourself, if I have heard aright, to disapprove openly of our marriage. Upon what ground that would bear announcing I know not, but let this be enough: try and realise that our respective positions are totally changed by this unforeseen event, and that, as Molly is now to be mistress at Pulwick, I must of course revoke my tacit abdication. Nevertheless, if you think you can put up with the new state of things, there need be little alteration in your present mode of life, my dear Rupert; if you will only make a generous effort to alter your line of conduct."

And here, Sir Adrian, succ.u.mbing for a moment to the fault, so common to kindly minds, of discounting the virtue of occasional firmness by a sudden return to geniality, offered his hand in token of peace.

Mr. Landale took it; his grasp, however, was limp and cold.

"I am quite ready to express regret," he said in a toneless voice, "since that would seem to be gratification to you, and moreover seems to be the tacit condition on which you will refrain from turning me out. I ought indeed to have abstained from referring, however vaguely, to past events, for the plain reason that anything I could say would already have come too late to prevent the grievous deed you have now pledged yourself to commit."