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Mollie's Prince

<h2>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> <h3>AN IDEALIST IN LOVE.</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Whatever we gain, we gain by patience." S. Teresa. </div> </div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now." The Merry Wives of Windsor. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> About three weeks after Christmas Althea was sitting alone in her library. The great room felt strangely empty that morning. There was no curly head to be seen bending over the writing table in Cosy Nook; no girl secretary to answer the silver chiming of Althea's little bell. Waveney and Doreen had gone up to town for a day's shopping, leaving Althea to enjoy the rest that she so sorely needed. The severe round of Christmas feastings, the lavish dispensing of cakes and ale, would have tried a robust constitution, and even Doreen complained of unwonted fatigue; but Althea, highly strung and sensitive, had to pay the usual penalty for over-exertion by one of her painful eye attacks, which lasted for three or four days, leaving her weak and depressed. It is strange and sad how mind and body react on each other in these attacks. A grey haze, misty and impalpable, seemed to veil Althea's inner world, and blot out her cheerfulness. The free, healthy current of her thoughts was checked by dimly discerned obstacles. A chilling sense of self-distrust, of rashly undertaken work, made her heart heavy. "It is brain-sickness," Doreen would say, to comfort her. "It will pass, my dear." "Yes, it will pass," returned Althea, with passive gentleness. "I know that as well as you do, Dorrie; but for the time it masters me. Althea ill and Althea well seem two different persons. Is it not humiliating, dear, to think we are at the mercy of our over-wrought nerves? A trifling ailment, a little bodily discomfort, and, if we are at heaven's very gate, we drop to earth like the lark." "Into our nest," returned Doreen, with a smile. "You have chosen too cheerful a simile. Larks soar perpetually, and they sing as they soar." "I think I am more like a blind mole at the present moment," replied Althea, pushing up her shade a little, that she might see her sister's face. "Dorrie, I am ashamed of myself. I deserve any amount of scolding. I try to count up my blessings, to think of my girls' happy faces, but I am fast in my Slough of Despond, and not all your efforts will pull me out." "Very well, then, we must leave you there," returned Doreen, composedly; but she gave Althea's hand a loving little squeeze as she said this. Her heart was full of tenderness and sympathy, but she was too sensible to waste words fruitlessly. These sick moods were purely physical, and would yield, she knew well, to time and rest. They were trials to be borne—part of Althea's life-discipline—the cloud that checkered their home cheerfulness; for these melancholy moods seemed to pervade the whole house. Althea felt much as usual that morning, though she had not quite recovered her looks. Her face seemed longer and more sallow, and there were tired lines round her eyes. When a woman has passed her youth, mental suffering leaves an indelible mark; and Althea looked old and worn that day, and more like Queen Elizabeth's Wraith than ever. "I am very idle," she was saying to herself, "but I feel that not one of the books that ever were written would interest me to-day. I have no spirit or energy for travels, history is too full of war and bloodshed, and biography would weary me; a novel—well, no I think not; I am not in the mood for other people's love-stories. I wish some one would write a novel about elderly people," she went on—"middle-aged, prosaic people, who have outlived their romance. How soothing such a book would be! I could almost write it myself. There should be plenty of incident, and very little moralising; and it would be like one of those grey winter days, when the sunlight is veiled in soft vapour, and every window one passes is red with the firelight of home." The fancy pleased her, and she smiled at her own conceit; but it faded in a moment when the door-bell rang. "A visitor at this time in the morning!" she thought, and a little frown of annoyance gathered on her brow; but it vanished when Mitchell threw open the door and announced Lord Ralston. "Why, Moritz!" she exclaimed, and her voice was full of surprise and pleasure, "this is indeed a welcome sight. How long is it since you last honoured our poor abode? Draw that chair up to the fire and give some account of yourself. Even Gwen seems to have forgotten our existence since baby Murdoch made his appearance!" "Ah, you may well say so," returned Moritz, with a dismal shake of his head. "Gwen is incorrigible. I give you my word, Althea, that the beatitude of that young woman is so excessive and so fatuous that it resembles idiocy. She fairly drivels with sentiment over that infant, and he is as ugly and snub-nosed a little chap as Gwen was herself. He has even got her freckles; and she calls them beauty-spots;" and Lord Ralston's voice expressed unmitigated disgust. Althea laughed. "I do not suppose that Madam endorses these sentiments. I should like to hear Mrs. Compton's opinion of her grandson." "Well, she vows he is a fine child, and he has got Jack's eyes. But, all the same, I heard her tell Gwen that a plain baby often became a handsome man. So we can make our own deductions from that. 'Murdoch has his good points,' she went on, 'and he will improve.' And, would you believe it? that idiotic Gwen became as red as a turkey-cock. "'There is no improvement wanted,' she said, indignantly. 'My precious baby is perfect. He is beautiful in his mother's eyes, whatever his cross old grandmother chooses to say!' And then she hugged the little chap and cried over him, and all the time Madam sat beaming on them both, with her fine old face tremulous with happiness. "It is Ruth and Naomi over again," finished Moritz. "Madam still finds fault with Jack sometimes, but never with Gwen, and the way Gwen toadies her passes belief." "Gwendoline is very happy, certainly. Never was there a better-matched couple than she and Jack Compton." Althea spoke in a tone of warm interest. She had forgotten her distaste for other people's love-stories at that moment, and the thought of her young cousin's happiness was pleasant to her. "Dear Gwen, I am so fond of her. I am glad that one man had the sense to fall in love with her, in spite of her plain face; but you know, Moritz, that I always thought Gwen's ugliness quite charming." "Yes, but I could not have done it in Jack's place," returned Moritz, rather thoughtfully. "I am too great an admirer of beauty." And then he changed the subject a little abruptly. "Jack and Gwen and their son and heir have been staying with me at Brentwood. I had a house-party for Christmas and the New Year, and I wanted Gwen to play hostess. It was an awful bore, and I got pretty sick of it, but they had both been lecturing me on the duties I owed to my fellow-creatures. Well, I have played my Lord Frivol long enough, and now I am plain Mr. Ingram again." "What, still masquerading? Isn't it time for you to unmask?" But he shook his head. "No, not yet; but there is method in my madness. We have not quite completed our little comedy, but I think the closing scene will be effective." He shut his eyes as though to picture the scene, and then opened them abruptly. "I have not been to Cleveland Terrace for an age. In fact, I only came up from Brentwood this morning, and on my way up here I passed Doreen and Miss Ward." "Oh, then you knew I was alone?" "To be sure I did. That is why I appear in my true character. I suppose"—his voice changing perceptibly—"that Miss Mollie and her father and my friend the humourist are well?" But Moritz did not look at Althea as he put this question, and so did not see the little smile on her lips. "They were quite well when Waveney went home on Sunday. She said Mollie was a little pale and tired; but then, she had been taking too long a walk. She spent a night here on the evening of our girls' entertainment. It was quite amusing to see how they all admired her. She was the May Queen in one of the tableaux. It was the prettiest thing imaginable." "I wish I had seen it;" and Lord Ralston's eyes were dark and bright. If Althea had not guessed his secret long ago, she would have guessed it now. With one of those sudden impulses which were natural to her, she put her hand gently on his arm. "Moritz," she said, in her sweet, womanly way, "does Gwen know. Have you made her your confidante?" Just for a moment Moritz drew himself up a little stiffly—as though he resented the question; but the kindness in Althea's eyes disarmed him, and perhaps his need of sympathy was too great. "There was no need to tell her," he returned, in a low voice; "she found it out for herself. Gwen is very acute about such things." "And she approves?" "Oh, we have not come to that point yet"—speaking in his old, airy manner—"but she was very much interested, and as good as gold. She laughed at me a little for what she called my fantastic chivalry; but, all the same, she seemed to like it." "But, Moritz, why are you so afraid of appearing in your true colours? I do not see that Viscount Ralston is a less interesting person than Mr. Ingram." "Perhaps not," he returned, drily; "but we all have our whims. I am an Idealist, you must remember that, and I have a wish to stand on my own merits as a man, and not to make myself taller by posing on my pedestal of thirty thousand a year. It may be a foolish whimsie, but it is a harmless one, and affords me plenty of innocent amusement." Althea smiled, but she knew it was useless to pursue the argument. Moritz and Gwendoline were both utterly unmanageable when they had a crotchet in their head. They cared nothing about the world's opinion, and as for Madam Grundy, or any other madam, they had simply no regard for them. Already Viscount Ralston was considered a most eccentric person, and sundry matrons had admonished their daughters on no account to contradict him. "He is a little odd, certainly," one of them remarked, "but I am told he is really clever and original, and that sort of thing wears off after a time. Your father is very much taken with him, so you may make yourself as agreeable as you like to Lord Ralston." "And when may I ask him to marry me?" returned the daughter, to whom this Machiavellian speech had been addressed; for Lady Ginevra had plenty of spirit, and was clever enough to read between the lines. "Mother was terribly put out," she informed her younger sister afterwards. "She lectured me for ten minutes on what she called my coarseness and vulgarity; but, as I told her, I prefer vulgarity to hypocrisy. 'You and father want me to marry Viscount Ralston,' I told her, 'because he has Brentwood Hall and a fine house in town and thirty thousand a year, and it does not matter one bit if I care for him or not; if he holds out the sceptre to me I am to touch it.' But, thank heavens, Jenny, these are not the Dark Ages, and though mother frowned and stamped her foot, there was no 'Get thee to a nunnery!'" And Lady Ginevra laughed and went off to put on her habit, for it was the hour when she and her father rode in the park. Althea had a word to say before she let the subject drop. "At the theatre you spoke of needing my help, Moritz. I hope you will let me know when my assistance is wanted." "Oh, I was going to speak to you about that," he returned, quickly. "You see, my dear cousin, that there are circumstances in which a man is bound not to be selfish. Miss Mollie"—how his voice always softened as he said the name!—"is so simple and childlike; she knows so little of the world, and her life has been so retired, that I dare not hurry matters. She must learn to know and trust me before I can venture to make my meaning plain." "Yes, I can understand that." "Gwen quite agrees with me, but all the same I think—at least, I hope—that Monsieur Blackie's probation will soon be over, but Gwen and I have all our plans in readiness. What do you say to a picnic party at Brentwood about the middle of next month?" "My dear Moritz, are you crazy? Really, an Idealist in love is a terrible being. A picnic in the middle of February! Do you want the three grim sisters, snow and hail and frost, to be among your guests?" "Pshaw! nonsense!" he replied, impatiently. "There are lovely spring-like days in February. Besides, with the sort of picnic I mean, weather will not signify. You had better hear my programme first, Althea." "Oh, go on," she returned, in a resigned voice. "I will try to forget my common-sense while I listen to you." But he only twirled his moustache triumphantly. "The party will be small and select; just you and the two Misses Ward and Gwen and myself." "And not Noel?" in some surprise. "Noel! Oh, dear, no! My friend the humourist would be decidedly de trop. He is too acute and wide-awake a youth, and Monsieur Blackie would be found out in a moment." "But I thought Lord Ralston was to be our host!" Althea spoke in a puzzled tone. Then Moritz patted her in a soothing manner. "Keep calm, I entreat you," he said, gently. "In the presence of great thoughts we should always keep calm. Lord Ralston is my intimate friend, please understand that. We are like brothers, he and I, and it is for the corner of his picture-gallery, at Brentwood, that King Canute was bought; Miss Ward and her sister will be interested to see it again. And as Brentwood Hall, with its Silent Pool, is a show place—a picnic there will be the most natural thing in the world." "And the master is absent." "Yes, he is absent—but he may return at any moment;" and here there was a strange glow in Moritz's eyes. "We must leave town early," he went on, briskly, after a moment's pause—"and I think we could reach Brentwood by midday. Gwen has promised to meet us at the Hall, and we shall have plenty of time to see the picture-gallery, and more of the rooms before luncheon. I shall coach the servants carefully, so there will be no contretemps. After luncheon there will be the conservatories and the Silent Pool, and then tea in the blue drawing-room; it will be light until half-past five, so you may as well tell Doreen not to expect you home until eight. Oh, I forgot one important part of the programme: Gwen means to carry you off to Kingsdene, either before or after tea, to see baby Murdoch and Madam; she is staying with them at present." It was evident, from Althea's amused look, that the picnic at Brentwood would meet with her approval, and she was just about to give a cordial assent when Mitchell entered to tell her that luncheon was ready; and at the same time she handed her a telegram. "It is for Miss Ward, ma'am," she said; "and the boy is waiting." "Then I suppose I had better open it," returned Althea. "There was some talk of their going to Cleveland Terrace to have tea with Mollie, if they finished their shopping in time. Perhaps this is to say that she is out or engaged." And then Althea opened the yellow envelope. But her countenance changed as she read the telegram. "Do not come," was all it said. "Mollie is ill—will write." It was from Everard Ward. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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