Monica, Volume 2 (of 3)

“Thank you, Randolph,” she said, with one more of those inexplicable glances. “I need not be alone at Trevlyn. Aunt Elizabeth will come, I am sure, and stay with me;” and she went quietly away without another word.

“I say, Trevlyn, you have tamed my lady pretty considerably,” remarked Tom, when the men were alone together. “I expected no end of a shine when she found out, and she yields the point like a lamb. Seems to me you’ve cast a pretty good spell over her during the short time you’ve had her in hand.”

Randolph pulled thoughtfully at his moustache as he turned again to the papers on the table. He did not reply directly to Tom’s remark, but presently observed, rather as if it were the outcome of his own thoughts:

“All the same, I would give a good deal if one of my first acts after coming into the property were not to banish Arthur from Trevlyn for a considerable and indeterminate time.”

“Oh, bosh!” ejaculated Tom, taking up Bradshaw again. “Why, even Monica would never put a construction like that upon this business.”

This day and the next flew by as if on wings. There was so much to think of, so much to do, and Monica had Arthur so much upon her mind, that she found no opportunity to say to Randolph what she had purposed doing in the heat of the moment. Speech was still an effort to her; her reserve was too deep to be easily overcome. She was busy and he was pre-occupied. When he returned she would tell him all, and thank him for his generous goodness towards her boy.

“Monica,” said Arthur, as she came to bid him good-night upon the eve of his journey – he had had a soothing draught administered, and was no longer excited, but quiet and drowsy – “Monica, you will be quite happy, will you not, with only Randolph now? You love him very much, don’t you?”

She bent her head and kissed him.

“Yes, Arthur,” she answered, softly. “I love him with all my heart.”

“Just as he loves you,” murmured Arthur. “I can see it in his face, in every tone of his voice, especially when he talks of you – which is pretty nearly always – we both like it so much. I am so glad you feel just the same. I thought you did. I shall like to think about you so – how happy you will be!”

The next day after Arthur had been placed in the carriage that was to take him away from Trevlyn, and Monica had said her last adieu to him, and had turned away with pale face and quivering lips, she felt her hands taken in her husband’s strong warm clasp.

“Monica,” he said tenderly, “good-bye. I will take every care of him. You shall hear everything, and shall not regret, if I can help it, trusting him to me.”

Monica looked up suddenly into his face, and put her arms about his neck. She did not care at that moment for the presence of Tom or of the servants. Her husband was leaving her – she had only thoughts for him.

“Take care of yourself, Randolph,” she said, her voice quivering, and almost breaking. “Take care of yourself, and come back to me as quickly as you can. I shall miss you, oh! so much, till I have you safe home again. Good-bye, dear husband, good-bye!”

He held her for a moment in his arms. His heart beat tumultuously; for an instant everything seemed to recede, and leave him and his wife alone in the world together; but it was no time now to indulge in raptures. He kissed her brow and lips, and gently unloosed her clasp.

“Good-bye, my wife,” he said gently. “God bless and keep you always.”

The next moment the carriage was rolling rapidly away along the road, Monica gazing after it, her soul in her eyes.

“Ah; my darling,” said Mrs. Pendrill, coming and taking her by the hand, “it is very hard to part with him; but it was kind to Arthur to spare him, and it is only for a few days.”

“I know, I know,” answered Monica passing her hand across her eyes. “I would not have kept him here. Arthur wanted him so much – I can understand so well what he felt – it would have been selfish to hold him back. But it feels so lonely and desolate without him; as if everything were changed and different. I can’t express it; but oh! I do feel it all so keenly.”

Mrs. Pendrill pressed the hand she held.

“You love him, then, so very much?”

“Ah, yes,” she answered; “how could I help it?”

“It makes me very happy to hear you say that. For I was sometimes rather afraid that you were hurried into marriage before you had learned to know your own heart, I thought.”

Monica passed her hand across her brow.

“Was I hurried?” she asked dreamily. “It is so hard to remember all that now. It seems as if I had always loved Randolph – as if he had always been the centre of my life.”

And Mrs. Pendrill was content. She said no more, asked no more questions.

“You know, Randolph,” said Arthur to his kindest of nurses and attendants, as he lay in bed at night, after rather a hard day’s travelling, “I don’t wonder now that you’ve so completely cut me out. I shouldn’t have believed it possible once, but it seems not only possible, but natural enough, now that I know what kind of a fellow you are.”

“What do you mean, my boy?” asked Randolph.

“Mean? Why, what I say to be sure. I understand now why you’ve so completely cut me out with Monica. I only hold quite a subordinate place in her affections now. It is quite right, and I shall never be jealous of you, old fellow; only mind you always let me be her brother. I can’t give up that. You may have all the rest, though. You deserve it, and you’ve got it too, by her own showing.”

Randolph started a little involuntarily.

“What do you mean?”

“Mean? why, that she loves you heart and soul, of course. You must know it as well as I, and I had it from her own lips.”

“My wife, my wife!” said Randolph, as he paced beneath the starry heavens that night. “Then I was not deceived or mistaken – my wife – my Monica – my very own – God bless you, my darling, and bring me safe home to you and to your love!”

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH.

UNITED

During the days that followed Monica lived as in one long, happy dream. The clouds all seemed to have rolled away, letting in the sunshine to the innermost recesses of her heart.

Why was she so calmly and serenely happy, despite the real sorrow hanging over her in the recent death of a tenderly-loved father? Why did even the loss of the brother, to whom she had vowed such changeless devotion, give her no special pang? She had felt his going much, yet it did not weigh her down with any load of sorrow. She well knew why these changes were. The old love had not changed nor waned, but it had been eclipsed in the light of the deep wonderful happiness that had grown up in her heart, since she had come to know how well and faithfully she loved Randolph, and to believe at last in his love for her.

Yes, she no longer doubted that now. Something in the very perfectness of her own love drove away the haunting doubts and fears that had troubled her for so long. He had her heart, and she had his, and when once she had him home again the last shadow would have vanished away. How her heart beat as she pictured that meeting! How she counted the hours till she had him back!

Only once was she disturbed in her quiet, dreamy time of waiting.

Once, as she was riding through the loneliest part of the lonely pine wood, Conrad Fitzgerald suddenly stood in her path, gazing earnestly at her with a look she could not fathom.

Her face flushed and paled. She regarded him with a glance of haughty displeasure.

“Let me pass, Sir Conrad.”

He did not move; he was still fixedly regarding her.

“I told you how it would be, Monica,” he said. “I told you Arthur would be sent away.”

She smiled a smile he did not understand.

“Let me pass,” she said again.

His eyes began to glow dangerously. Her beauty and her scorn drove him to a sort of fury.

“Is this the way you keep your promise? Is this how you treat a man you have promised to call your friend?”

“My friend!” Monica repeated the words very slowly, with an inflection the meaning of which could not be misunderstood; nor did he affect to misunderstand her.

“Lady Monica,” he said, “you have heard some lying story, I perceive, trumped up by that scoundrel you call your husband.”