Part 92 (1/2)
”If you will take my advice, nothing,--for two or three weeks. He cannot sail for India before then, and do his best. Preserve an offended silence. Then obtain an interview with him by fair means, or, if not, by foul.”
”You unscrupulous creature!” Molly says, smiling; but after a little reflection she determines to abide by her friend's counsel. ”Horrible, hateful letter,” she says, tearing it up and throwing it out of the window. ”I wish I had never read you. I am happier now you are gone.”
”So am I. It was villainously worded and very badly written.”
”I don't know that,” begins Molly, warmly; and then she stops short, and they both laugh. ”And you, Cecil--what of you? Am I mistaken in thinking you and Sir Penthony are--are----”
”Yes, we are,” says Cecil, smiling and coloring brilliantly. ”As you so graphically express it, we actually--_are_. At present, like you, we are formally engaged.”
”Really?”--delighted. ”I always knew you loved him. And so you have given in at last?”
”Through sheer exhaustion, and merely with a view to stop further persecution. When a man comes to you day after day, asking you whether you love him yet, ten to one you say yes in the end, whether it be the truth or not. We all know what patience and perseverance can do. But I desire you, Molly, never to lose sight of the fact that I am consenting to be his only to escape his importunities.”
”I quite understand. But, dear Cecil, I am so rejoiced.”
”Are you, dear?”--provokingly. ”And why?--I thought to have a second marriage, if only for the appearance of the thing; but it seems I cannot. So we are going to Kamtschatka, or Bath, or Timbuctoo, or Hong-Kong, or Halifax, for our wedding tour, I really don't know which, and I would not presume to dictate. That is, if I do not change my mind between that and this.”
”And when is that?”
”The seventeenth of next month. He wanted to make it the first of April; but I said I was committing folly enough without reminding all the world of it. So he succ.u.mbed. I wish, Molly, you could be married on the same day.”
”What am I to do with a lover who refuses to take me?” says Molly, with a rueful laugh. ”I dare say I shall be an old maid after all.”
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.
”Why shouldn't I love my love?
Why shouldn't he love me?
Why shouldn't I love my love, Since love to all is free?”
Three full weeks that, so far as Molly is concerned, have been terribly, wearisomely long, have dragged to their close. Not that they have been spent in idleness; much business has been transacted, many plans fulfilled; but they have been barren of news of her lover.
”In the spring a young man's fancies lightly turn to thoughts of love;”
but his thoughts seem far removed from such tender dalliance.
She knows, through Cecil, of his being in Ireland with his regiment for the first two of those interminable weeks, and of his appearance in London during the third, where he was seeking an exchange into some regiment ordered on foreign service; but whether he has or has not been successful in his search she is supremely ignorant.
Brooklyn, her dear old home, having been discovered on her grandfather's death to be still in the market, has been bought back for her by Mr. Buscarlet, and here Let.i.tia--with her children and Molly--feels happier and more contented than she could ever have believed to be again possible.
Seated at breakfast, watched over by the faithful Sarah, without apparent cause for uneasiness, there is, nevertheless, an air of uncertainty and expectation about Mrs. Ma.s.sereene and her sister that makes itself known even to their attendant on this particular morning in early April of which I write.
In vain does Sarah, with a suppressed attempt at coaxing, place the various dishes under Miss Ma.s.sereene's eyes. They are accepted, lingeringly, daintily, but are not eaten. The children, indeed, voracious as their kind, come n.o.bly to the rescue, and by a kindly barter of their plates for Molly's, which leaves them an undivided profit, contrive to clear the table.
Presently, Molly having refused languidly some delicate steaming cakes of Sarah's own making, that damsel leaves the room in high dudgeon, and Molly leans back in her chair.
”Tell me again, Letty, what you wrote to him,” she says, letting her eyes wander through the window, all down the avenue, up which the postman must come, ”word for word.”
”Just exactly what you desired me, dear,” replies Let.i.tia, seriously.