Mrs. Geoffrey. Duchess
he knows that he is welcome in her sight, and that "the day grows brighter for his coming." Still, at times this strange coldness puzzles him, not understanding that
"No lesse was she in secret heart affected,
But that she masked it in modestie,
For feare she should of lightnesse be detected."
For many days he had not known "that his heart was darkened with her shadow." Only yesterday he might perhaps have denied his love for her, so strange, so uncertain, so undreamt of, is the dawning of a first great attachment. One looks upon the object that attracts, and finds the deepest joy in looking, yet hardly realizes the great truth that she has become part of one's being, not to be eradicated until death or change come to the rescue.
Perhaps Longfellow has more cleverly – and certainly more tenderly – than any other poet described the earlier approaches of the god of Love, when he says, —
"The first sound in the song of love
Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,
And play the prelude of our fate."
For Geoffrey the prelude has been played, and now at last he knows it. Up and down the little hall he paces, his hands behind his back, as his wont when deep in day-dreams, and asks himself many a question hitherto unthought of. Can he – shall he – go farther in this matter? Then this thought presses to the front beyond all others: – "Does she – will she – ever love me?"
"Now, hurry, Bridget," says Mona's low soft voice, – that "excellent thing in woman." "Don't be any time. Just give that to Kitty, and say one prayer, and be back in ten minutes."
"Law, Miss Mona, ye needn't tell me; sure I'm flyin' I'll be there an' back before ye'll know I'm gone." This from the agile Biddy, as (exhilarated with the knowledge that she is going to see a corpse) she rushes up the road.
"Now come and see my own room," says Mona, going up to Rodney, and, slipping her hand into his in a little trustful fashion that is one of her many, loving ways, she leads him along the hall to a door opposite the kitchen. This she opens, and with conscious pride draws him after her across its threshold. So holding him, she might at this moment have drawn him to the world's end, – wherever that may be!
It is a very curious little room they enter, – yet pretty, withal, and suggestive of care and affection, and certainly not one to be laughed at. Each object that meets the view seems replete with pleasurable memory, – seems part of its gentle mistress. There are two windows, small, and with diamond panes like the parlor, and in the far end is a piano. There are books, and some ornaments, and a huge bowl of sweetly-smelling flowers on the centre-table, and a bracket or two against the walls. Some loose music is lying on a chair.
"Now I am here, you will sing me something," says Geoffrey, presently.
"I wonder what kind of songs you like best," says Mona, dreamily, letting her fingers run noiselessly over the keys of the Collard. "If you are like me, you like sad ones."
"Then I am like you?" returns he, quickly.
"Then I will sing you a song I was sent last week," says Mona, and forthwith sings him "Years Ago," mournfully, pathetically, and with all her soul, as it should be sung. Then she gives him "London Bridge," and then "Rose-Marie," and then she takes her fingers from the piano and looks at him with a fond hope that he will see fit to praise her work.
"You are an artiste," says Geoffrey, with a deep sigh when she has finished. "Who taught you, child? But there is no use in such a question. Nobody could teach it to you: you must feel it as you sing. And yet you are scarcely to be envied. Your singing has betrayed to me one thing: if ever you suffer any great trouble it will kill you."
"I am not going to suffer," says Mona, lightly. "Sorrow only falls on every second generation; and you know poor mother was very unhappy at one time: therefore I am free. You will call that superstition, but," with a grave shake of her head, "it is quite true."
"I hope it is," says Geoffrey; "though, taking your words for gospel, it rather puts me out in the cold. My mother seems to have had rather a good time all through, devoid of anything that might be termed trouble."
"But she lost her husband," says Mona, gently.
"Well, she did. I don't remember about that, you know. I was quite a little chap, and hustled out of sight if I said 'boo.' But of course she's got over all that, and is as jolly as a sand-boy now," says Geoffrey, gayly. (If only Lady Rodney could have heard him comparing her to a "sand-boy"!)
"Poor thing!" says Mona, sympathetically, which sympathy, by the by, is utterly misplaced, as Lady Rodney thought her husband, if anything, an old bore, and three months after his death confessed to herself that she was very glad he was no more.
"Where do you get your music?" asks Geoffrey, idly, wondering how "London Bridge" has found its way to this isolated spot, as he thinks of the shops in the pretty village near, where Molloy and Adams, and their attendant sprite called Weatherley, are unknown.
"The boys send it to me. Anything new that comes out, or anything they think will suit my voice, they post to me at once."
"The boys!" repeats he, mystified.
"Yes, the students, I mean. When with aunty in Dublin I knew ever so many of them, and they were very fond of me."
"I dare say," says Mr. Rodney, with rising ire.
"Jack Foster and Terry O'Brien write to me very often," goes on Mona, unconsciously. "And indeed they all do occasionally, at Christmas, you know, and Easter and Midsummer, just to ask me how I am, and to tell me how they have got through their exams. But it is Jack and Terry, for the most part, who send me the music."
"It is very kind of them, I'm sure," says Geoffrey, unreasonably jealous, as, could he only have seen the said Terry's shock head of red hair, his fears of rivalry would forever have been laid at rest. "But they are favored friends. You can take presents from them, and yet the other day when I asked you if you would like a little gold chain to hang to your mother's watch, you answered me 'that you did not require it' in such a tone as actually froze me and made me feel I had said something unpardonably impertinent."
"Oh, no," says Mona, shocked at this interpretation of her manner. "I did not mean all that; only I really did not require it; at least" – truthfully – "not much. And, besides, a song is not like a gold chain; and you are quite different from them; and besides, again," – growing slightly confused, yet with a last remnant of courage, – "there is no reason why you should give me anything. Shall I" – hurriedly – "sing something else for you?"
And then she sings again, some old-world song of love and chivalry that awakes within one a quick longing for a worthier life. Her sweet voice rings through the room, now glad with triumph, now sad with a "lovely melancholy," as the words and music sway her. Her voice is clear and pure and full of pathos! She seems to follow no rule; an "f" here or a "p" there, on the page before her, she heeds not, but sings only as her heart dictates.
When she has finished, Geoffrey says "thank you" in a low tone. He is thinking of the last time when some one else sang to him, and of how different the whole scene was from this. It was at the Towers, and the hour with its dying daylight, rises before him. The subdued light of the summer eve, the open window, the perfume of the drowsy flowers, the girl at the piano with her small drooping head and her perfectly trained and very pretty voice, the room, the soft silence, his mother leaning back in her crimson velvet chair, beating time to the music with her long jewelled, fingers, – all is remembered.
It was in the boudoir they were sitting, and Violet was dressed in some soft gray dress that shone and turned into palest pearl as she moved. It was his mother's boudoir, the room she most affects, with its crimson and gray coloring and its artistic arrangements, that blend so harmoniously, and are so tremendously becoming to the complexion when the blinds are lowered. How pretty Mona would look in a gray and crimson room? how —
"What are you thinking of?" asks