Mrs. Geoffrey

"How d'ye do, Mrs. Rodney? Is Lady Rodney at home? I hope so," says Mrs. Carson, a fat, florid, smiling, impossible person of fifty.

Now, Lady Rodney is at home, but, having given strict orders to the servants to say she is anywhere else they like, – that is, to tell as many lies as will save her from intrusion, – is just now reposing calmly in the small drawing-room, sleeping the sleep of the just, unmindful of coming evil.

Of all this Mona is unaware; though even were it otherwise I doubt if a lie could come trippingly to her lips, or a nice evasion be balanced there at a moment's notice. Such foul things as untruths are unknown to her, and have no refuge in her heart. It is indeed fortunate that on this occasion she knows no reason why her reply should differ from the truth, because in that case I think she would stand still, and stammer sadly, and grow uncomfortably red, and otherwise betray the fact that she would lie if she knew how.

As things are, however, she is able to smile pleasantly at Mrs. Carson, and tell her in her soft voice that Lady Rodney is at home.

"How fortunate!" says that fat woman, with her broad expansive grin that leaves her all mouth, with no eyes or nose to speak of. "We hardly dared hope for such good luck this charming day."

She doesn't put any g into her "charming," which, however, is neither here or there, and is perhaps a shabby thing to take notice of at all.

Then she and her two daughters quit the "coach," as Carson pere insist on calling the landau, and flutter through the halls, and across the corridors, after Mona, until they reach the room that contains Lady Rodney.

Mona throws open the door, and the visitors sail in, all open-eyed and smiling, with their very best company manners hung out for the day.

But almost on the threshold they come to a full stop to gaze irresolutely at one another, and then over their shoulders at Mona. She, marking their surprise, comes hastily to the front, and so makes herself acquainted with the cause of their delay.

Overcome by the heat of the fire, her luncheon, and the blessed certainty that for this one day at least no one is to be admitted to her presence, Lady Rodney has given herself up a willing victim to the child Somnus. Her book – that amiable assistant of all those that court siestas – has fallen to the ground. Her cap is somewhat awry. Her mouth is partly open, and a snore – gentle, indeed, but distinct and unmistakable – comes from her patrician throat.

It is a moment never to be forgotten!

Mona, horror-stricken, goes quickly over to her, and touches her lightly on the shoulder.

"Mrs. Carson has come to see you," she says, in an agony of fear, giving her a little shake.

"Eh? What?" asks Lady Rodney, in a dazed fashion, yet coming back to life with amazing rapidity. She sits up. Then in an instant the situation explains itself to her; she collects herself, bestows one glance of passionate anger upon Mona, and then rises to welcome Mrs. Carson with her usual suave manner and bland smile, throwing into the former an air meant to convey the flattering idea that for the past week she has been living on the hope of seeing her soon again.

She excuses her unwonted drowsiness with a little laugh, natural and friendly, and begs them "not to betray her." Clothed in all this sweetness she drops a word or two meant to crush Mona; but that hapless young woman hears her not, being bent on explaining to Mrs. Carson that, as a rule, the Irish peasantry do not go about dressed only in glass beads, like the gay and festive Zulus, and that petticoats and breeches are not utterly unknown.

This is tough work, and takes her all her time, as Mrs. Carson, having made up her mind to the beads, accepts it rather badly being undeceived, and goes nearly so far as telling Mona that she knows little or nothing about her own people.

Then Violet and Doatie drop in, and conversation becomes general, and presently the visit comes to an end, and the Carsons fade away, and Mona is left to be bear the brunt of Lady Rodney's anger, which has been steadily growing, instead of decreasing, during the past half-hour.

"Are there no servants in my house," demands she, in a terrible tone, addressing Mona a steely light coming into her blue eyes that Mona knows and hates so well, "that you must feel it your duty to guide my visitors to my presence?"

"If I made a mistake I am sorry for it."

"It was unfortunate Mona should have met them at the hall door, – Edith Carson told me about it, – but it could not be helped," says Violet calmly.

"No, it couldn't be helped," says little Doatie. But their intervention only appears to add fuel to the fire of Lady Rodney's wrath.

"It shall be helped," she says, in a low, but condensed tone. "For the future I forbid any one in my house to take it upon them to say whether I am in or out. I am the one to decide that. On what principle did you show them in here?" she asks, turning to Mona, her anger increasing as she remembers the rakish cap: "why did you not say, when you were unlucky enough to find yourself face to face with them, that I was not at home?"

"Because you were at home," replies Mona, quietly, though in deep distress.

"That doesn't matter," says Lady Rodney: "it is a mere formula. If it suited your purpose you could have said so – I don't doubt – readily enough."

"I regret that I met them," says Mona, who will not say she regrets she told the truth.

"And to usher them in here! Into one of my most private rooms! Unlikely people, like the Carsons, whom you have heard me speak of in disparaging terms a hundred times! I don't know what you could have been thinking about. Perhaps next time you will be kind enough to bring them to my bedroom."

"You misunderstand me," says Mona, with tears in her eyes.

"I hardly think so. You can refuse to see people yourself when it suits you. Only yesterday, when Mr. Boer, our rector, called, and I sent for you, you would not come."

"I don't like Mr. Boer," says Mona, "and it was not me he came to see."

"Still, there was no necessity to insult him with such a message as you sent. Perhaps," with unpleasant meaning, "you do not understand that to say you are busy is rather more a rudeness than an excuse for one's non-appearance."

"It was true," says Mona: "I was writing letters for Geoffrey."

"Nevertheless, you might have waived that fact, and sent down word you had a headache."

"But I hadn't a headache," says Mona, bending her large truthful eyes with embarrassing earnestness upon Lady Rodney.

"Oh, if you were determined – " returns she, with a shrug.

"I was not determined: you mistake me," exclaims Mona, miserably. "I simply hadn't a headache: I never had one in my life, – and I shouldn't know how to get one!"

At this point, Geoffrey – who has been hunting all the morning – enters the room with Captain Rodney.

"Why, what is the matter?" he says, seeing signs of the lively storm on all their faces. Doatie explains hurriedly.

"Look here," says Geoffrey. "I won't have Mona spoiled. If she hadn't a headache, she hadn't, you know, and if you were at home, why, you were, and that's all about it. Why should she tell a lie about it?"

"What do you mean, Geoffrey?" demands his mother, with suppressed indignation.

"I mean that she shall remain just as she is. The world may be 'given to lying,' as Shakspeare tells us, but I will not have Mona tutored into telling fashionable falsehoods," says this intrepid young man facing his mother without a qualm of a passing dread. "A lie of any sort is base, and a prevarication is only a mean lie. She is truthful, let her stay so. Why should she learn it is the correct thing to say she is not at home when she is, or that she is suffering from a foolish megrim when she isn't? I don't suppose there is much harm in saying either of these things, as nobody ever believes them; but – let her remain as she is."

"Is she also to learn that you are at liberty to lecture your own mother?" asks Lady Rodney, pale with anger.

"I am not lecturing anyone," replies he, looking very like her, now that his face has whitened a little and a quick fire has lit itself within his eyes. "I am merely speaking against a general practice. 'Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie,' is a line that always returns to me. And, as I love Mona better than anything on earth, I shall make it the business of my life to see she is not made unhappy by any one."

At this Mona lifts her head, and turns upon him eyes full of the tenderest love and trust. She would have dearly liked to go to him, and place her arms round his neck, and thank him with a fond caress for this dear speech, but some innate sense of breeding restrains her.

Any demonstration on her part just now may make a scene, and scenes are ever abhorrent. And might she not yet further widen the breach between mother and son by an ill-timed show of affection for the latter?

"Still, sometimes, you know, it is awkward to adhere to the very letter of the law," says Jack Rodney, easily. "Is there no compromise? I have heard of women who have made a point of running into the kitchen-garden when unwelcome visitors were announced, and so saved themselves and their principles. Couldn't Mona do that?"

This speech is made much of, and laughed at for no reason whatever except that Violet and Doatie are determined to end the unpleasant discussion by any means, even though it may be at the risk of being deemed silly. After some careful management they get Mona out of the room, and carry her away with them to a little den off the eastern hall, that is very dear to them.

"It is the most unhappy thing I ever heard of," begins Doatie, desperately. "What Lady Rodney can see to dislike in you, Mona, I can't imagine. But the fact is, she is hateful to you. Now, we," glancing at Violet, "who are not particularly amiable, are beloved by her, whilst you, who are all 'sweetness and light,' she detests most heartily."

"It is true," says Violet, evenly. "Yet, dear Mona, I wish you could try to be a little more like the rest of the world."

"I want to very much," says poor Mona, her eyes filling with tears. "But," hopelessly, "must I begin by learning to tell lies?" All this teaching is very bitter to her.

"Lies! Oh, fie!" says Doatie. "Who tells lies? Nobody, except the naughty little boys in tracts, and they always break their legs off apple-trees, or else get drowned on a Sunday morning. Now, we are not drowned, and our legs are uninjured. No, a lie is a horrid thing, – so low, and in such wretched taste. But there are little social fibs that may be uttered, – little taradiddles, – that do no harm to anybody, and that nobody believes in, but all pretend to, just for the sake of politeness."

Thus Doatie, looking preternaturally wise, but faintly puzzled at her own view of the question.

"It doesn't sound right," says Mona, shaking her head.

"She doesn't understand," puts in Violet, quickly. "Mona, are you going to see everybody that may choose to call upon you, good, bad, and indifferent, from this till you die?"

"I suppose so," says Mona lifting her brows.

"Then I can only say I pity you," says Miss Mansergh, leaning back in her chair, with the air of one who would say, "Argument here is in vain."

"I sha'n't want to see them, perhaps," says Mona, apologetically, "but how shall I avoid it?"

"Ah, now, that is more reasonable; now we are coming to it," says Doatie, briskly. "We 'return to our muttons.' As Lady Rodney, in a very rude manner, tried to explain to you, you will either say you are not at home, or that you have a headache. The latter is not so good; it carries more offence with it, but it comes in pretty well sometimes."

"But, as I said to Lady Rodney, suppose I haven't a headache," retorts Mona, triumphantly.

"Oh, you are incorrigible!" says Doatie, leaning back in her chair in turn, and tilting backward her little flower-like face, that looks as if even the most harmless falsehood must be unknown to it.

"Could you not imagine you had one?" she says, presently as a last resource.

"I could not," says Mona. "I am always quite well." She is standing before them like a culprit called to the bar of justice. "I never had a headache, or a toothache, or a nightmare, in my life."

"Or an umbrella, you should add. I once knew a woman like that, but she was not like you," says Doatie. "Well, if you are going to be as literal as you now are, until you call for your shroud, I must say I don't envy you."

"Be virtuous and you'll be happy, but you won't have a good time," quotes Violet; "you should take to heart that latest of copy-book texts."

"Oh, fancy receiving the Boers whenever they call!" says Doatie, faintly, with a deep sigh that is almost a groan.

"I sha'n't mind it very much," says Mona, earnestly. "It will be after all, only one half hour out of my whole day."

"You don't know what you are talking about," says Doatie, vehemently. "Every one of those interminable half-hours will be a year off your life. Mr. Boer is obnoxious, but Florence is simply insupportable. Wait till she begins about the choir, and those hateful school-children, and the parish subsidies; then you perhaps will learn wisdom, and grow headaches if you have them not. Violet, what is it Jack calls Mr. Boer?"

"Better not remember it," says Violet, but she smiles as she calls to mind Jack's apt quotation.

"Why not? it just suits him: 'A little, round, fat, oily man of – '"

"Hush, Dorothy! It was very wrong of Jack," interrupts Violet. But Mona laughs for the first time for many hours – which delights Doatie.

"You and I appreciate Jack, if she doesn't, don't we, Mona?" she says, with pretty malice, echoing Mona's merriment. After which the would-be lecture comes to an end, and the three girls, clothing themselves in furs, go for a short walk before the day quite closes in.

CHAPTER XXVIII

HOW THE TOWERS WAKES INTO LIFE – AND HOW MONA SHOWS THE LIBRARY TO PAUL RODNEY

Lights are blazing, fiddles are sounding; all the world is abroad to-night. Even still, though the ball at the Towers has been opened long since by Mona and the Duke of Lauderdale, the flickering light of carriage-lamps is making the roads bright, by casting tiny rays upon the frosted ground.

The fourth dance has come to an end; cards are full; every one is settling down to work in earnest; already the first touch of satisfaction or of carefully-suppressed disappointment is making itself felt.

Mona, who has again been dancing with the duke, stopping near where the duchess is sitting, the latter beckons her to her side by a slight wave of her fan. To the duchess "a thing of beauty is a joy forever," and to gaze on Mona's lovely face and admire her tranquil but brilliant smile gives her a strange pleasure.

"Come and sit by me. You can spare me a few minutes," she says, drawing her ample skirts to one side. Mona, taking her hand from Lauderdale's arm, drops into the proffered seat beside his mother, much to that young man's chagrin, who, having inherited the material hankering after that "delightful prejudice," as Theocritus terms beauty, is decidedly epris with Mrs. Geoffrey, and takes it badly being done out of his tete-a-tete with her.

"Mrs. Rodney would perhaps prefer to dance, mother," he says, with some irritation.

"Mrs. Rodney will not mind wasting a quarter of an hour on an old woman," says the duchess, equably.

"I am not so sure of that," says Mona, with admirable tact and an exquisite smile, "but I shouldn't mind spending an hour with you."

Lauderdale makes a little face, and tells himself secretly "all women are liars," but the duchess is very pleased, and bends her friendliest glance upon the pretty creature at her side, who possesses that greatest of all charms, inability to notice the ravages of time.

Perhaps another reason for Mona's having found such favor in the eyes of "the biggest woman in our shire, sir," lies in the fact that she is in many ways so totally unlike all the other young women with whom the duchess is in the habit of associating. She is naive to an extraordinary degree, and says and does things that might appear outre in others, but are so much a part of Mona that it neither startles nor offends one when she gives way to them.

Just now, for example, a pause occurring in the conversation, Mona, fastening her eyes upon her Grace's neck, says, with genuine admiration, —

"What a lovely necklace you are wearing!"

To make personal remarks, we all know, is essentially vulgar, is indeed a breach of the commonest show of good breeding; yet somehow Mrs. Geoffrey's tone does not touch on vulgarity, does not even belong to the outermost skirts of ill-breeding. She has an inborn gentleness of her own, that carries her safely over all social difficulties.

The duchess is amused.

"It is pretty, I think," she says. "The duke," with a grave look, "gave it to me just two years after my son was born."

"Did he?" says Mona. "Geoffrey gave me these pearls," pointing to a pretty string round her own white neck, "a month after we were married. It seems quite a long time ago now," with a sigh and a little smile. "But your opals are perfect. Just like the moonlight. By the by," as if it has suddenly occurred to her, "did you ever see the lake by moonlight? I mean from the mullioned window in the north gallery?"

"The lake here? No," says the duchess.

"Haven't you?" in surprise. "Why it is the most enchanting thing in the world. Oh, you must see it: you will be delighted with it. Come with me, and I will show it to you," says Mona, eagerly, rising from her seat in her impulsive fashion.

She is plainly very much in earnest, and has fixed her large expressive eyes – lovely as loving – with calm expectancy upon the duchess. She has altogether forgotten that she is a duchess (perhaps, indeed, has never quite grasped the fact), and that she is an imposing and portly person not accustomed to exercise of any description.

For a moment her Grace hesitates, then is lost. It is to her a new sensation to be taken about by a young woman to see things. Up to this, it has been she who has taken the young women about to see things. But Mona is so openly and genuinely anxious to bestow a favor upon her to do her, in fact, a good turn, that she is subdued, sweetened, nay, almost flattered, by this artless desire to please her for "love's sake" alone.

She too rises, lays her hand on Mona's arm, and walks through the long room, and past the county generally, to "see the lake by moonlight." Yet it is not for the sake of gazing upon almost unrivalled scenery she goes, but to please this Irish girl, whom so very few can resist.

"Where has Mona taken the duchess?" asks Lady Rodney of Sir Nicholas half an hour later.

"She took her to see the lake. Mona, you know, raves about it, when the moon lights it up.

"She is very absurd, and more troublesome and unpleasant than anybody I ever had in my house. Of course the duchess did not want to see the water. She was talking to old Lord Dering about the drainage question, and seemed quite happy, when that girl interfered. Common courtesy compelled her, I suppose, to say yes to – Mona's – proposition."

"I hardly think the duchess is the sort of woman to say yes when she meant no," says Nicholas, with a half smile. "She went because it so pleased her, and for no other reason. I begin to think, indeed, that Lilian Chetwoode is rather out of it, and that Mona is the first favorite at present. She has evidently taken the duchess by storm."

"Why not say the duke too?" says his mother, with a cold glance, to whom praise of Mona is anything but "cakes and ale." "Her flirtation with him is very apparent. It is disgraceful. Every one is noticing and talking about it. Geoffrey alone seems determined to see nothing! Like all under-bred people, she cannot know satisfaction unless perched upon the topmost rung of the ladder."

"You are slightly nonsensical when on the subject of Mona," says Sir Nicholas, with a shrug. "Intrigue and she could not exist in the same atmosphere. She is to Lauderdale what she is to everyone else, – gay, bright, and utterly wanting in self-conceit. I cannot understand how it is that you alone refuse to acknowledge her charms. To me she is like a little soft sunbeam floating here and there and falling into the hearts of those around her, carrying light, and joy, and laughter, and merry music with her as she goes."

"You speak like a lover," says Lady Rodney, with an artificial laugh. "Do you repeat all this to Dorothy? She must find it very interesting."

"Dorothy and I are quite agreed about Mona," replies he, calmly. "She likes her as much as I do. As to what you say about her encouraging Lauderdale's attentions, it is absurd. No such evil thought could enter her head."

At this instant a soft ringing laugh, that once heard is not easily forgotten, comes from an inner room, that is carefully curtained and delicately lighted, and smites upon their ears.

It is Mona's laugh. Raising their eyes, both mother and son turn their heads hastily (and quite involuntarily) and gaze upon the scene beyond. They are so situated that they can see into the curtained chamber and mark the picture it contains. The duke is bending over Mona in a manner that might perhaps be termed by an outsider slightly empresse, and Mona is looking up at him, and both are laughing gayly, – Mona with all the freshness of unchecked youth, the duke with such a thorough and wholesome sense of enjoyment as he has not known for years.

Then Mona rises, and they both come to the entrance of the small room, and stand where Lady Rodney can overhear what they are saying.

"Oh! so you can ride, then," says Lauderdale, alluding probably to the cause of his late merriment.

"Sure of course," says Mona. "Why, I used to ride the colts barebacked at home."

Lady Rodney shudders.

"Sometimes I long again for a mad, wild gallop straight across country, where nobody can see me, – such as I used to have," goes on Mona, half regretfully.

"And who allowed you to risk your life like that?" asks the duke, with simple amazement. His sister before she married was not permitted to cross the threshold without a guardian at her side. This girl is a revelation.

"No one," says Mona. "I had no need to ask permission for anything. I was free to do what I wished."

She looks up at him again with some fire in her eyes and a flush upon her cheeks. Perhaps some of the natural lawlessness of her kindred is making her blood warm. So standing, however, she is the very embodiment of youth and love and sweetness, and so the duke admits.

"Have you any sisters?" he asks, vaguely.

"No. Nor brothers. Only myself.

"'I am all the daughters of my father's house,And all the brothers too!'"

She nods her head gayly as she says this, being pleased at her apt quotation from the one book she has studied very closely.

The duke loses his head a little.

"Do you know," he says, slowly, staring at her the while, "you are the most beautiful woman I ever saw?"

"Ah! so Geoffrey says," returns she, with a perfectly unembarrassed and pleased little laugh, while a great gleam of tender love comes into her eyes as she makes mention of her husband's name. "But I really am not you know."

This answer, being so full of thorough unconsciousness and childish naivete, has the effect of reducing the duke to common sense once more, and of making him very properly ashamed of himself. He feels, however, rather out of it for a minute or two, which feeling renders him silent and somewhat distrait. So Mona, flung upon her own resources, looks round the room seeking for inspiration, and presently finds it.

"What a disagreeable-looking man that is over there!" she says: "the man with the shaggy beard, I mean, and the long hair."

She doesn't want in the very least to know who he is, but thinks it her duty to say something, as the silence being protracted grows embarrassing.

"The man with the mane? that is Griffith Blount. The most objectionable person any one could meet, but tolerated because his tongue is so awful. Do you know Colonel Graves? No! Well, he has a wife calculated to terrify the bravest man into submission, and last year when he was going abroad Blount met him, and asked him before a roomful 'if he was going for pleasure, or if he was going to take his wife with him.' Neat, wasn't it? But I don't remember hearing that Graves liked it."