Mona Maclean

“ By the way, do you know that Castle Maclean is yours for life now? At least Carlton Lodge is, and only the sea-gulls are likely to dispute my princess's claim to her battlements."
He handed her into a boat, and rowed out into the middle of the river.
"Now," he said, "you shall see what your slave's muscles are worth."
Like an arrow the little boat shot through the water in the sunshine, and Mona laughed with delight at the exhilaration of the swift rushing movement.
"That will do, Dr Dudley," she said at last. "Don't kill yourself." ”

“ He was thinking much just now of the burly old professor whose visit he had keenly enjoyed; and more even than of the professor he was thinking of Mona Maclean. All things are relative in life. Scores of men had met Mona who had scarcely looked at her a second time. She might be nothing and nobody in the great bright world of London ”

“ During all these months what had caused Mona the acutest suffering was an anguish of shame. It never remained with her long, but it recurred whenever she was worn out and depressed. She had long since realised that, from an outsider's point of view, her experience that winter night was in no way so exceptional as she had supposed,—that there were thousands of men who would give such expression to a moment's transient passion. But surely, surely Dr Dudley was not one of these, and surely any man must see that with a woman like her it must be everything or nothing! ”

“ Mona went to the table and poured out a glass of wine. "Drink that," she said, "and then come to my bedroom and have a good splash. I will do all the talking during dinner; and when you are quite rested, you shall tell me the news."
"Life will be a different thing, now you are back," Lucy said, as they seated themselves at the table. "What lovely flowers!"
"You ought to admire them. Aunt Maud sent them from your beloved Cannes. I do so admire that Frisia. It is white and virginal, like Doris." ”

“ There are very few people in the world whom I like and trust as I do you, but I would as soon think of marrying Sir Douglas Munro. And you—you are sacrificing yourself to your own chivalry. You want to marry me because you are sorry for me, because I have muddled my own life."
"That is not true. My one objection to you is that you are twice the man that I am."
Mona laughed. "Eh bien! L'un n'empêche pas l'autre. No, no; you are much too good a man to be thrown away on a woman who only likes and trusts you." ”

“ Mona said reflectively. "I suppose I am really less grave than I appear, and you on the whole are less of a flibbertigibbet than the world takes you to be. So we meet on something of a common ground. I see in you a side of my nature which in the ordinary course of events I don't find it easy to express, and possibly you see something of the same sort in me. Each of us relieves the other of the necessity——"
"Don't prose, please!" interrupted Lucy. "I never yet found the smallest difficulty in expressing myself, and—the saints be praised!—you are not always quite so dull as you are to-day. ”

“ Mona smiled and drew a long breath.
"What a relief it is to be with people who know one's little weaknesses!" she said.
"What a relief it is to be with people who know one wine from another!" he replied. "Now Doris drinks my Rœderer dutifully, but in her heart she prefers ginger-pop!"
Doris protested indignantly.
"Now don't pretend that you are a wholesome animal," said her father, looking at her with infinite pride. "You like horses and dogs, that is the one human thing about you. By the way, did you make any sketches in Norway, Miss Maclean?"
"Very few. Norway was too big for me. ”

“ Mona drew a long breath. "It is not your fault in the least, but I don't think any human being was ever placed in such a false position as I am." She hesitated. When she had first seen the glad friendly smile on the Sahib's face, she had fancied it would be so easy to tell him the whole story; but now the situation seemed so absurd, so grotesque, so impossible, that she could not find words.
"Mr Dickinson," she said at last, "Lady Munro really is my aunt." ”

“ She seated herself on a great mossy boulder, and suddenly bethought herself of Lucy's letter. The familiar handwriting and words looked strangely out of place in this dreary solitude.
"MY DEAR MONA,—Perhaps you would like to know what I did when I read your letter. I sat on the floor and howled! Not with laughter,—don't flatter yourself that your witticisms had anything to do with it. They only added insult to injury. Don't imagine either that I mean to argue with you. It is impossible to influence you when your decision is right; and when it is wrong, one might as well reason with a mule. ”

“ For some time Mona tried to discuss the question calmly, but the cutting, merciless words wounded her more than she could bear; so she rose and took her gloves from the table.
"That will do, cousin," she said coldly; "but for the accident of circumstances it might have been you or I."
This of course was a truism, but Rachel could not be expected to see it in that light, and the flames of her wrath leaped higher.
"Jenny can pay for a nurse from Kirkstoun," she said; "I'll not have you waiting hand and foot on a creature no decent woman would speak to. You'll not enter that house again." ”

“ Now that she knew where he sat, Mona had no difficulty in avoiding his short-sighted eyes. In fact, as time went on, she grew bolder, and loved to look on from a distance, while Dudley's fellow-students gathered round and assailed him with a torrent of questions, the moment each paper was over. It was pleasant to see his relations with those lads,—the friendly raillery which they took in such good part. Clearly they looked upon him as a very good fellow, and a mine of wisdom.
"You are mere boys to him," thought Mona proudly. "He is willing to play with you; but I am his friend!" ”

“ The half lights, the subtle Eastern aroma, and the picturesque figure of Nubboo had disappeared, giving place to a blaze of pretty lamps, festoons of æsthetic drapery, profuse vegetation, and groups of magnificent footmen.
"Come along, Mona!" Evelyn cried impatiently. "Lucy has been here for half an hour. I was so afraid you would be too late to see the rooms before the bloom is knocked off them. The supper-table is simply a dream."
"Bless my soul!" said Lucy, in an awestruck whisper, as Mona threw off her cloak. "You do look imposing! Mary Stuart going to the scaffold is not in it. ”

“ Don't talk of passion dying, Mona. I don't know what it is I feel for you. I think it is every beautiful feeling of which my soul is capable. It cannot die."
"Ralph," said Mona, "man of the world, do I need to tell you that we must not treat our love in spendthrift fashion, like a mere boy and girl? Love is a weed. It springs up in our gardens of its own accord. We trample on it; but it flourishes all the more. We cut it down, mangle it, root it up; but it seems to be immortal. Nothing can kill it. ”

“ Doris and Mona had spent half the day among the shops and stores, and Mona was in a glow of satisfaction. She was convinced that no human being had ever made a ten-pound note go so far before, and it was with difficulty that she could be induced to talk of anything else.
Doris was much amused. She believed in letting people "gang their ain gait," and a day with Mona was worth having under most conditions; but how any intelligent human being could elect to spend it so, was more than she could divine. ”

“ The Sahib's face brightened visibly for a moment. Perhaps it was true, after all, that this clever woman was more of a child in some respects than half the flimsy damsels in the ball-room.
"Miss Maclean," he said, "bear with my dulness, and say to me these five words, 'There is no one else.'"
Mona lifted her honest eyes.
"There is no one else," she said simply.
"Thank you. Then if my sole rival is the work that only an unmarried woman can do, I decline to accept your answer."
"Don't be foolish, Mr Dickinson," said Mona gently. ”

“ Mona wondered whether in all his honest life he had ever looked at any other woman with just that light in his eyes. "What a lucky man he will be who wins my Doris!" she said to herself; and close upon that thought came another. "They say matchmakers are apt to defeat their own ends, but if one praises the woman to the man, and abuses the man to the woman, one must at least be working in the right direction."
With a burst of harmony the band began a new waltz.
"Our dance, Miss Maclean," said the Sahib, coming up to her. ”

“ If a man of culture like Dr Dudley could not wholly ignore the fact of her social inferiority, how much less was it possible to an empty little soul like Matilda Cookson? for she was one of those people to whose moral and spiritual progress an earthly crutch is absolutely essential. She never forgot that conversation at Castle Maclean; but the two things that in after years stood out most clearly in her memory were the quotation about the martyrs, and Mona's relationship to Lady Munro. ”

“ Mona's laugh only half concealed her rising colour.
"Older has it," she said, nodding to the Sahib. "Score!"
As they went in to dinner, she looked round at the unpretentious perfection of the room and the table, with a long sigh of satisfaction.
"There is no house in the world," she said, "where I have precisely the sense of restfulness that I have here. Nothing jars; I don't need to talk unless I like; and I can afford to be my very own self."
"That's a good hearing," said Mr Colquhoun heartily. "Have some soup!" ”

“ Mona rose and kissed her.
"Dearest," she said, "you are the preux chevalier of your sex, and I love you for it with all my heart. I feel the force of what you say, though one learns in time to be silent, and not even to think of it more than need be. But indeed, you make yourself more unhappy than you should. Some of the young men of whom you speak so scornfully are truly scientific, and many of them have infinite kindness of heart." ”

“ I should get simply unbearable if I lived with you much longer."
"The fact is," continued Sir Douglas, looking at his wife, "the greatest mistake of our married life has been that Mona did not come to us ten years ago, when your mother died."
"I don't fancy Mona thinks so," said Lady Munro, smiling at her niece.
"No," said Mona, and the slight flush on her cheek showed that her frankness cost her an effort. "It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. ”

“ In the life at Borrowness, nothing tried Mona more sorely than the way in which her cousin truckled to every one whom she considered her social superior; and it was almost unavoidable that Mona herself should be driven to the opposite extreme in her morbid resolution that no one should consider her guilty of the same meanness. "I don't suppose for a moment that those girls would bow to Rachel in the streets of St Rules," she thought. "Why can she not be content to look upon them as customers and nothing more?" ”

“ Mona, you are very lazy. Do come and draw. See, I've two sketch-blocks, and no end of brushes."
"Ah!" said Mona. "Let me really succeed with a Dies Iræ, or a Transfiguration, and then I shall think of attacking the Nærodal."
Evelyn raised her blue eyes. "Don't be cutting, please," she said quietly.
"And why not, pray, if it amuses me and does you no harm? In the insolent superiority of youth, must you needs dock one of the few privileges of crabbed age? ”

“ Lady Munro said, glancing at Mona's carriage clock; and, as she rose, she looked somewhat pointedly at Mr Brown.
The hint was lost on him, however. He bowed awkwardly to Lady Munro, and waited till Mona returned to the sitting-room.
"Miss Maclean," he blurted out hastily, "you will be disposed to laugh at me when I tell you I came here to ask you to be my wife. I knew you were far above me, but I had no notion of the like of this. You've no need to tell me that it can never be, but if ever you stand in need of a plain man's friendship, you know who to come to." ”

“ At this moment Nubboo announced a visitor, a cousin of Sir Douglas', and the latter seemed glad of an interruption which allowed him to have Mona entirely to himself.
He shook hands with the new-comer, and then, returning to Mona's side, sat in silence for a few moments as if trying to collect his thoughts.
"The fact is," he broke out impulsively at last, "I am torn asunder on this subject of women doctors—torn asunder. There is a terrible necessity for them—terrible—and yet, what a sacrifice!" ”

“ Mona did not go to Surbiton, after all, that day. She telegraphed to her friend from Clapham Junction, and then she and Ralph took the train to Richmond.
"Let me take you for a pull on the river," he had said. "I have never done anything for you in my life, and my arms just ache to be used in your service. Oh Mona, Mona, Mona! it seems too good to be possible that you are still the same simple, true-hearted girl that I knew at Castle Maclean. ”

“ Mona had by no means escaped the general depression consequent on the bazaar and the ball, and her cousin's querulousness was a heavy strain upon her endurance. Fortunately, it had the effect of putting her on her mettle. "I am certainly not fit to be a doctor," she thought, "if I cannot bear and forbear in a simple little case like this." So she went from shop to parlour, and from parlour to shop, with a light step and a cheerful face, striving hard to keep Rachel supplied with scraps of gossip that would amuse her without tempting her to talk. ”