Читать книгу A Tail of Gold - David Hennessey - Страница 8

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IT is a curious problem, as to what is the mature and proper age, at which a young girl's heart should, spontaneously, awaken to the knowledge of love for the opposite sex.

Molly certainly loved Will immensely, and would have said so without the least diffidence or hesitation, for he was her friend and comrade, and best of chums; but in view of such an open expression of her affection for Will, it is needless to add that for Molly the supreme affection of a woman for a man was not yet awakened; and in Molly's case was seemingly not likely to be awakened soon.

She had so much to love. Her life was so full of beautiful objects and sympathetic friends, upon whom the hunger of the heart could satisfy itself. She had so much to call her own, so many people and animals she could pet and be kind to.

The vicar, who was a very true friend of Will Monckton's, held strong views as to the unwisdom of mere boys and girls courting and marrying. He was greatly interested in Molly as well as Will, and knew of the strong affection he had for her; but he counselled patience. In such a case as Molly's the master passion was less likely to come to maturity in youthful days.

'Sexual love in early youth,' said Mr. Payne to his wife, 'almost always ends disastrously, and it is mostly brought about by the lack of love elsewhere. Misfortune, disappointment, poverty, and unloving surroundings at home age the heart and make sexual lovers of boys and girls before they have learnt the alphabet of that which makes life worth living. Of their very nature, young hearts must find something to love, something to be kind to, and if they do not find it at home, they will look for it abroad.'

Molly had a whole world of things to love, besides her mother, and Tommy, and Will, and a host of friends. She loved Nature and the country, and the beautiful things her bright eyes saw there. The paintings which adorned their home told of her love of art, and how she had learnt to reproduce upon canvas the charm of nature. Molly was too much enamoured of the good and beautiful in life, in books, in music and in nature, to be troubled with that infirmity of modern society—the mental yawn.

'Ah!' exclaimed the vicar, 'was there ever such an age of yawning? Such an age of deafness too—for when the mouth yawns the muscles of the head promptly close the ears. So society, superficially educated and mostly irreligious, goes after exciting pleasures to keep itself from yawning; and the poor young heart, bereft of the innocent things it ought to love, yawns itself into youthful indiscretions, which shrivel up the soul.'

Sarah Monckton was the aunt of Lieutenant Harold William Monckton, who had been called Willie in his youth, and Will in later years. When his mother died he was a strong, big, thoughtful boy of eleven, and two years after, when left an orphan by the death of his father, he was a grave handsome lad, with dark curly hair and hazel eyes, which, not without fire in them, seemed to see more things than do most people's.

At this crisis in the boy's history—for such is the loss of parents—his aunt's mature affection almost made up for the want of a mother's care and father's wise authority. It was wonderful, the love the lone rich woman had for her dead brother's son. And Will, thoughtful beyond his years, did all he could to repay his Aunt Sarah for her devotion to him.

Thus, through deaths and other causes, the two houses became to the children almost one; the elders fraternised, and the servants used the friendly gate to gossip in the evenings, not so much of common family failings as of neighbourly deeds—and of the girl and boys.

At six, Molly was a self-assertive, engaging, but half-spoiled little beauty, until a brother came, named Tommy, who was the cause of endless trouble to her, which sometimes, even with tears, she confided to Will.

'You know, Mother says it's my duty to love the little man 'cause he's my brother; but it's hard to love him when he pulls my doll's hair off in his little hands, and pokes her eyes with his fingers. And he's so strong, and won't let go, and then, of course, I slap his hands and make him; then he howls, and nurse or mother comes. He's really a very tiresome child.'

Thus Molly, and Will, and Tom, grew up together; and Will went from school to college, passing into youthful maturity before they well knew what was happening, or how the golden years of youth, so fair and unforgetable, were slipping into the dim avenues of past remembrances.

Then the war in South Africa came, and when barely twenty, the call of the Empire turned Will Monckton's head. It was the only time he had really opposed his aunt's will. She would not hear of his going; but it was of no use, he had had some military training at college and prided himself on his proficiency, and he would go. At last Miss Monckton consented, and when he had gone into town to join the contingent, Molly climbed into her lap and put her arms around her neck, and they cried together, until they both laughed when Molly sagely said: 'I suppose, Auntie, we'll have to let him go; indeed if I wasn't so little, I'd go myself and be a nurse, so as to take care of him.'

Will came back from the war a bronzed man of three-and-twenty, who might have been taken for twenty-eight or thirty. Molly was under seventeen. She was a bit shy; Will had altered so; but the old affection had not abated, and she listened to his tales of privation, and battle, and endurance, and of the honours he had won, until, like Desdemona, she loved him for the dangers he had passed, and he loved her that she admired and appreciated him; but it was more the love of a brother and sister for each other at this time than anything else.

It may be guessed that Will and Molly, at twenty-three and seventeen, were on the very border of that enchanted ground where men and women become all the world to each other, and experience those exquisite emotions of bliss and pain, which embrace the heights of heaven and depths of hell: that greatest thing in the world, which in the noblest of the race, burns and stings, and throbs with bliss, and melts in tears, and cries with laughter; and gives to human existence delight, and dignity, and loveliness.

It may be that Will and Molly at this time were too near to each other, too well conditioned and mutually self-possessed, to be in love. A flash of fire, a rival, some untoward circumstance, some stroke of misfortune, and the great secret might at any moment be revealed. But those who loved them best would wish them to remain a little longer in the paradise of happy ignorance, as were our first parents in that wondrous garden.

That evening at The Poplars, Mrs. Maguire, with Molly and Miss Monckton, received their guests in the big drawing-room. It was a friendly function and most of them were greeted by their Christian names.

'Mother's in great fettle to-night,' whispered Tommy to Will Monckton, as Mrs. Maguire swept graciously forward to shake hands with Mr. and Mrs. Payne, and their two daughters.

Mrs. Maguire was dressed, like Molly, in white silk; but with flashing diamonds. Although she owned to being forty-five, she might have passed for thirty-five, only that Molly was seventeen. Taller than her daughter, she had the air and deportment of a woman who had been used to good society all her life; yet she was born on a way-back station, and, as a girl, had been used to riding with only a bag on the back of a bare-backed horse, to bring up the cows for milking. But she had some Irish blue blood in her veins, and breeding tells.

People wondered why she had not married again; but she was too well off as a widow; too cold in her temperament, and too used to having her own way; to say nothing of the fact that, in her own erratic fashion, she had been in love with her husband, the handsome Charley Maguire.

She was a creature of many impulses and not a few failings; but put her into a silk dress, with super-excellent jewellery, to receive half-a-dozen or more of her acquaintances, and she became the incomparable hostess at once. At other times, she would chatter depreciative nonsense about the vicar, and make fun of his wife and daughters, until Miss Monckton, after laughing until she almost cried, would, at last, fairly quarrel with her. Sometimes, when much exasperated, to relieve her feelings, she would mutter lurid words in Irish; but to-night, her voice was sweet and low, and her demeanour such as the angel Gabriel might have worn, when welcoming a sainted spirit into paradise. The vicar was charmed, the men all took to Mrs. Maguire; but his wife and daughters were amazed, for they had heard and seen her otherwise. However, Mrs. Maguire was a woman of resource, and she held her own splendidly on most occasions, caring very little what the women thought of her, so long as she remained a favourite with the men.

'What are you doing here, Bob?' Molly asked a red-headed, freckled youth later in the evening. He had strolled out of the moonlight into the fringe of onlookers in the marquee which sheltered the dancers. 'I thought you had a family gathering of your own at home?'

'I preferred to come and have a look at you, Molly,' replied the young gentleman, who was the Major's eldest son, studying at the Melbourne University, and known as Robert Boswell Smart. 'Can't you give me a dance?' he continued with a saucy smile.

'Not one, Bobbie. We've no programmes; but I'm engaged every dance till eleven, and then we're going to sit down to supper.'

'Let me take you in then?'

'No, my dear boy. It's Will's party and I'm promised; but excuse me, I've only just slipped away from Will for a minute, to speak to mother. Go and dance with Lucy Payne over there, she wants a partner.'

'No fear!' replied Bob. 'If I can't have you I'm off home. I hate to see that Will Monckton hugging you about. There's no standing him since he came back from South Africa.'

'You disgraceful boy!' exclaimed Molly indignantly, 'how dare you say Will hugs me about! He does nothing of the sort. We're chums!'

'Ah, well, you know what I mean, Molly. I beg your pardon, but kindly tell the toff that Dad's coming over to see him in the morning and will be obliged if he won't go out.'

'So that's what brought you over.'

'Nothing of the sort, I came over on my legs; but the main attraction, as you well know, was your dear dainty self.'

Molly made the young gentleman a mock curtsy, and replied, 'Thank you! I'll tell Will. Now you go back home at once, and make yourself agreeable there. And eat your Christmas supper with your kin folk, and try and be a good boy.'

There was more on the tip of Molly's tongue, for she was by no means partial to the young man, and she resented his reference to herself and Will; but her father and his grandfather were shipmates, so Molly thought it would not do for their descendants to have words with each other on Christmas Day.