Part 89 (2/2)
”So I was,--very near it,” replies he, modestly, in the same suppressed whisper. ”You never knew such a narrow escape as I had: they were determined to marry me----”
”'They'! You terrify me. How many of them? I had no idea they were so bad as that,--even in Ireland.”
”Oh, I mean the girl and her father. It was as near a thing as possible; in fact, it took me all I knew to get out of it.”
”I'm not surprised at that,” says Cecil, with a short but comprehensive glance at her companion's cheerful but rather indistinct features.
”I don't exactly mean it was my personal appearance was the attraction,” he returns, feeling a strong inclination to explode with laughter, as is his habit on all occasions, but quickly suppressing the desire, as being wicked under the circ.u.mstances. The horror of death has not yet vanished from among them. ”It was my family they were after,--birth, you know,--and that. Fact is, she wasn't up to the mark,--wasn't good enough. Not but that she was a nice-looking girl, and had a lovely brogue. She had money too--and she had a--father! Such a father! I think I could have stood the brogue, but I could _not_ stand the father.”
”But why? Was he a lunatic? Or perhaps a Home-ruler?”
”No,”--simply,--”he was a tailor. When first I met Miss O'Rourke she told me her paternal relative had some appointment in the Castle. So he had. In his youthful days he had been appointed tailor to his Excellency. It wasn't a bad appointment, I dare say; but I confess I didn't see it.”
”It was a lucky escape. It would take a good deal of money to make me forget the broadcloth. Are you coming down-stairs now? I dare say we ought to be a.s.sembling.”
”It is rather too early, I am afraid. I wish it was all done with, and I a hundred miles away from the place. The whole affair has made me downright melancholy. I hate funerals: they don't agree with me.”
”Nor yet weddings, as it seems. Well, I shall be as glad as you to quit Herst once we have installed Miss Amherst as its mistress.”
”Why not Shadwell as its master?”
”If I were a horrible betting-man,” says Cecil, ”I should put all my money upon Marcia. I do not think Mr. Amherst cared for Philip.
However, we shall see. And”--in a yet lower tone--”I hope he has not altogether forgotten Molly.”
”I hope not indeed. But he was a strange old man. To forget Miss Ma.s.sereene----” Here he breathes a profound sigh.
”Don't sigh, Plantagenet: think of Miss O'Rourke,” says Cecil, unkindly, leaving him.
One by one, and without so much as an ordinary ”How d'ye do?” they have all slipped into the dining-room. The men have a.s.sumed a morose air, which they fondly believe to be indicative of melancholy; the women, being by nature more hypocritical, present a more natural and suitable appearance. All are seated in sombre garments and dead silence.
Marcia, in c.r.a.pe and silk of elaborate design, is looking calm but full of decorous grief. Philip--who has grown almost emaciated during these past months--is the only one who wears successfully an impression of the most stolid indifference. He is leaning against one of the windows, gazing out upon the rich lands and wooded fields which so soon will be either all his or nothing to him. After the first swift glance of recognition he has taken no notice of Molly, nor she of him. A shuddering aversion fills her toward him, a distaste bordering on horror. His very pallor, the ill-disguised misery of his whole appearance,--which he seeks but vainly to conceal under a cold and sneering exterior,--only adds to her dislike.
A sickening remembrance of their last meeting in the wood at Brooklyn makes her turn away from him with palpable meaning on his entrance, adding thereby one pang the more to the bitterness of his regret. The meeting is to her a trial,--to him an agony harder to endure than he had even imagined.
Feeling strangely out of place and nervous, and saddened by memories of happy days spent in this very room so short a time ago, Molly has taken a seat a little apart from the rest, and sits with loosely-folded hands upon her knees, her head bent slightly downward.
Cecil, seeing the dejection of her att.i.tude, leaves her own place, and, drawing a chair close to hers, takes one of her hands softly between her own.
Then the door opens, and Mr. Buscarlet, with a sufficiently subdued though rather triumphant and consequential air, enters.
He bows obsequiously to Marcia, who barely returns the salute.
Detestable little man! She finds some consolation in the thought that at all events his time is nearly over; that probably--nay, surely--he is now about to administer law for the last time at Herst.
He bows in silence to the rest of the company,--with marked deference to Miss Ma.s.sereene,--and then involuntarily each one stirs in his or her seat and settles down to hear the will read.
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