The Friday comes at last, and about noon Mona and Geoffrey start for the Towers. They are not, perhaps, in the spirits that should be theirs, considering they are going to spend their Christmas in the of their family,—at all events, of Geoffrey's family which naturally for the future she must acknowledge as hers. They are indeed not only silent, but desponding, and as they get out of the train at Greatham and enter the carriage sent by Sir Nicholas to meet them their hearts sink nearly into their boots, and for several minutes no words pass between them.
To Geoffrey perhaps the coming bears a deeper shade; as Mona hardly understands all that awaits her. That Lady Rodney is a little at her son's marriage she can readily believe, but that she has made up her mind beforehand to dislike her, and intends waging with her war to the knife, is more than has ever entered into her gentle mind.
"Is it a long drive, Geoff?" she asks, presently, in a trembling tone, slipping her hand into his in the old fashion. "About six miles. I say, darling, keep up your spirits; if we don't like it, we can leave, you know. But"—alluding to her voice—"don't be imagining evil."
"I don't think I am," says Mona; "but the thought of meeting people for the first time makes me feel nervous. Is your mother tall, Geoffrey?"
"Very."
"And severe-looking? You said she was like you."
"Well, so she is; and yet I suppose our expressions are dissimilar. Look here," says Geoffrey, suddenly, as though compelled at the last moment to give her a hint of what is coming. "I want to tell you about her,—my mother I mean: she is all right, you know, in every way, and very charming in general, but just at first one might imagine her a little difficult!"
"What's that?" asked Mona. "Don't speak of your mother as if she were a scale."
"I mean she seems a trifle cold, unfriendly, and—er—that," says Geoffrey. "Perhaps it would be a wise thing for you to make up your mind what you will say to her on first meeting her. She will come up to you, you know, and give you her hand like this," taking hers, "and——"
"Yes, I know," said Mona, eagerly interrupting him. "And then she will put her arms round me, and kiss me just like this," suiting the action to the word.
"Like that? Not a bit of it," says Geoffrey, who had given her two kisses for her one: "you mustn't expect it. She isn't in the least like that. She will meet you probably as though she saw you yesterday, and say, 'How d'ye do? I'm afraid you have had a very long and cold drive.' And then you will say——"
A pause.
"Yes, I shall say——" anxiously.
"You—will—say——" Here he breaks down , and confesses by his inability to proceed that he doesn't in the least know what it is she can say.
"I know," says Mona, brightening, and putting on an air so different from her own usual unaffected one as to strike her listener with . "I shall say, 'Oh! thanks, quite too much, don't you know? but Geoffrey and I didn't find it a bit long, and we were as warm as wool all the time.'"
At this speech Geoffrey's calculations fall through, and he gives himself up to undisguised mirth.
"If you say all that," he says, "there will be on the green: that's Irish, isn't it? or something like it, and very well too. The first part of your speech sounded like Toole or Brough, I'm not sure which."
"Well, it was in a theatre I heard it," confesses Mona, : "it was a great lord who said it on the stage, so I thought it would be all right."
"Great lords are not necessarily faultlessly correct, either on or off the stage," says Geoffrey. "But, just for choice, I prefer them off it. No, that will not do at all. When my mother addresses you, you are to answer her back again in tones even colder than her own, and say——"
"But, Geoffrey, why should I be cold to your mother? Sure you wouldn't have me be uncivil to her, of all people?"
"Not uncivil, but cool. You will say to her, 'It was rather better than I anticipated, thank you.' And then, if you can manage to look bored, it will be quite correct, so far, and you may tell yourself you have scored one."
"I may say that speech, but I certainly can't pretend I was bored during our drive, because I am not," says Mona.
"I know that. If I was not sure of it I should instantly commit suicide by myself under the carriage-wheels," says Geoffrey. "Still—'let us dissemble.' Now say what I told you."
So Mrs. Rodney says, "It was rather better than I anticipated, thank you," in a tone so icy that his is warm beside it.
"But suppose she doesn't say a word about the drive?" says Mona, thoughtfully. "How will it be then?"
"She is safe to say something about it, and that will do for anything," says Rodney, out of the foolishness of his heart.
And now the horses draw up before a brilliantly-lighted hall, the doors of which are thrown wide as though in expectation of their coming.
Geoffrey, leading his wife into the hall, pauses beneath a central swinging lamp, to examine her critically. The footman who is in attendance on them has gone on before to announce their coming: they are therefore for the moment alone.
Mona is looking lovely, a little pale perhaps from some natural , but her pallor only adds to the of her great blue eyes and lends an additional sweetness to the ripeness of her lips. Her hair is a little loose, but becoming, and altogether she looks as like an painting as one can conceive.
"Take off your hat," says Geoffrey, in a tone that gladdens her heart, so full it is of love and ; and, having removed her hat, she follows him though halls and one or two anterooms until they reach the library, into which the man them.
It is a very pretty room, filled with a subdued light, and with a blazing fire at one end. All warmth, and home, and comfort, but to Mona in her present state it is desolation itself. The three occupants of the room rise as she enters, and Mona's heart dies within her as a very tall statuesque woman, drawing herself up languidly from a lounging-chair, comes up to her. There is no welcoming haste in her movements, no gracious smile, for which her guest is thirsting, upon her thin lips............