Then there is silence for a full minute, during which Miss Mansergh casts a reproachful glance at the irrepressible Jack.

"Well, I hope he has married a good girl, at all events," says Sir Nicholas, presently, with a sigh. But at this reasonable hope Lady Rodney once more gives way to bitter sobs.

"Oh, to think Geoffrey should marry 'a good girl'!" she says, weeping sadly. "One would think you were speaking of a servant! Oh! it is _too_ cruel!" Here she rises and makes for the door, but on the threshold pauses to confront Sir Nicholas with angry eyes. "To hope the wretched boy had married 'a good girl'!" she says, indignantly: "I never heard such an inhuman wish from one brother to another!"

She withers Sir Nicholas with a parting glance, and then quits the room, Violet in her train, leaving her eldest son entirely puzzled.

"What does she mean?" asks he of his brother, who is distinctly amused.

"Does she wish poor old Geoff had married a bad one? I confess myself at fault."

And so does Captain Rodney.

Meantime, Violet is having rather a bad time in the boudoir. Lady Rodney refuses to see light anywhere, and talks on in a disjointed fashion about this disgrace that has befallen the family.

"Of course I shall never receive her; that is out of the question, Violet: I could not support it."

"But she will be living only six miles from you, and the county will surely call, and that will not be nice for you," says Violet.

"I don't care about the county. It must think what it likes; and when it knows her it will sympathize with me. Oh! what a name! Scully! Was there ever so dreadful a name?"

"It is not a bad name in Ireland. There are very good people of that name: the Vincent Scullys,--everybody has heard of them," says Violet, gently. But her friend will not consent to believe anything that may soften the thought of Mona. The girl has entrapped her son, has basely captured him and made him her own beyond redemption; and what words can be bad enough to convey her hatred of the woman who has done this deed?

"I meant him for you," she says, in an ill-advised moment, addressing the girl who is bending over her couch a.s.siduously and tenderly applying eau-de-cologne to her temples. It is just a little too much. Miss Mansergh fails to see the compliment in this remark. She draws her breath a little quickly, and as the color comes her temper goes.

"Dear Lady Rodney, you are really too kind," she says, in a tone soft and measured as usual, but without the sweetness. In her heart there is something that amounts as nearly to indignant anger as so thoroughly well-bred and well regulated a girl can feel. "You are better, I think,"

she says, calmly, without any settled foundation for the thought; and then she lays down the perfume-bottle, takes up her handkerchief, and, with a last unimportant word or two, walks out of the room.

CHAPTER XV.

HOW LADY RODNEY SPEAKS HER MIND--HOW GEOFFREY DOES THE SAME--AND HOW MONA DECLARES HERSELF STRONG TO CONQUER.

It is the 14th of December, and "bitter chill." Upon all the lawns and walks at the Towers, "Nature, the vicar of the almightie Lord," has laid its white winding-sheet. In the long avenue the gaunt and barren branches of the stately elms are bowed down with the weight of the snow, that fell softly but heavily all last night, creeping upon the sleeping world with such swift and noiseless wings that it recked not of its visit till the chill beams of a wintry sun betrayed it.

Each dark-green leaf in the long shrubberies bears its own sparkling burden. The birds hide shivering in the lourestine--that in spite of frost and cold is breaking into blossom,--and all around looks frozen.

"Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, And the winter winds are wearily sighing;"

yet there is grandeur, too, in the scene around, and a beauty scarcely to be rivalled by June's sweetest efforts.

Geoffrey, springing down from the dog-cart that has been sent to the station to meet him, brushes the frost from his hair, and stamps his feet upon the stone steps.

Sir Nicholas, who has come out to meet him, gives him a hearty hand-shake, and a smile that would have been charming if it had not been funereal. Altogether, his expression in such as might suit the death-bed of a beloved friend, His countenance is of an unseemly length, and he plainly looks on Geoffrey as one who has fallen upon evil days.

Nothing daunted, however, by this reception, Geoffrey returns his grasp with interest, and, looking fresh and young and happy, runs past him, up the stairs, to his mother's room, to beard--as he unfilially expresses it--the lioness in her den. It is a very cosey den, and, though claws maybe discovered in it, n.o.body at the first glance would ever suspect it of such dangerous toys. Experience, however, teaches most things, and Geoffrey has donned armor for the coming encounter.

He had left Mona in the morning at the Grosvenor, and had run down to have it out with his mother and get her permission to bring Mona to the Towers to be introduced to her and his brothers. This he preferred to any formal calling on their parts.

"You see, our own house is rather out of repair from being untenanted for so long, and will hardly be ready for us for a month or two," he said to Mona: "I think I will run down to the Towers and tell my mother we will go to her for a little while."

Of course this was on the day after their return to England, before his own people knew of their arrival.

"I shall like that very much," Mona had returned, innocently, not dreaming of the ordeal that awaited her,--because in such cases even the very best men will be deceitful, and Geoffrey had rather led her to believe that his mother would be charmed with her, and that she was most pleased than otherwise at their marriage.

When she made him this little trustful speech, however, he had felt some embarra.s.sment, and had turned his attention upon a little muddy boy who was playing pitch-and-toss, irrespective of consequences, on the other side of the way.

And Mona had marked his embarra.s.sment, and had quickly, with all the vivacity that belongs to her race, drawn her own conclusions therefrom, which were for the most part correct.

But to Geoffrey--lest the telling should cause him unhappiness--she had said nothing of her discovery; only when the morning came that saw him depart upon his mission (now so well understood by her), she had kissed him, and told him to "hurry, hurry, _hurry_ back to her," with a little sob between each word. And when he was gone she had breathed an earnest prayer, poor child, that all might yet be well, and then told herself that, no matter what came, she would at least be a faithful, loving wife to him.

To her it is always as though he is devoid of name. It is always "he"

and "his" and "him," all through, as though no other man existed upon earth.

"Well, mother?" says Geoffrey, when he has gained her room and received her kiss, which is not exactly all it ought to be after a five months'

separation. He is her son, and of course she loves him, but--as she tells herself--there are some things hard to forgive.

"Of course it was a surprise to you," he says.

"It was more than a 'surprise.' That is a mild word," says Lady Rodney.

She is looking at him, is telling herself what a goodly son he is, so tall and strong and bright and handsome. He might have married almost any one! And now--now----? No, she cannot forgive. "It was, and must always be, a lasting grief," she goes on, in a low tone.

This is a bad beginning. Mr. Rodney, before replying, judiciously gains time, and makes a diversion by poking the fire.

"I should have written to you about it sooner," he says at last, apologetically, hoping half his mother's resentment arises from a sense of his own negligence, "but I felt you would object, and so put it off from day to day."

"I heard of it soon enough," returns his mother, gloomily, without lifting her eyes from the tiny feathered fire-screen she is holding.

"Too soon! That sort of thing seldom tarries. 'For evil news rides post, while good news baits.'"

"Wait till you see her," says Geoffrey, after a little pause, with full faith in his own recipe.

"I don't want to see her," is the unflinching and most ungracious reply.

"My dear mother, don't say that," entreats the young man, earnestly, going over to her and placing his arm round her neck. He is her favorite son, of which he is quite aware, and so hopes on. "What is it you object to?"

"To everything! How could you think of bringing a daughter-in-law of--of--her description to your mother?"

"How can you describe her, when you have not seen her?"

"She is not a lady," says Lady Rodney, as though that should terminate the argument.

"It entirely depends on what you consider a lady," says Geoffrey, calmly, keeping his temper wonderfully, more indeed for Mona's sake than his own. "You think a few grandfathers and an old name make one: I dare say it does. It ought, you know; though I could tell you of several striking exceptions to that rule. But I also believe in a n.o.bility that belongs alone to nature. And Mona is as surely a gentlewoman in thought and deed as though all the blood of all the Howards was in her veins."

"I did not expect you would say anything else," returns she, coldly. "Is she quite without blood?"