Molly Melville: a tale for girls

Front matter

MOLLY MELVILLE 36b tbe same author. MOLLY MELVILLE. Price ss. OLIVE ROSCOE ; or, Thc New Sister. Price 5s. THE HEIRESS OF WYLMINGTON. Price 5s. TEMPLES TRIAL. Price 5s. MAUD MELVILLE'S MARRIAGE. Price 3s. 6d. VERA'S TRUST. Price 3s. 6d. WINNING THE VICTORY. Price 3s. 6d. SQUIB AND HIS FRIENDS. Price 2S. 6d. BIRDIE'S RESOLVE. AND HOW IT WAS ACCOMPLISHED. Price =s. 6d. DULCIE'S LITTLE BROTHER; or. Doings at Little Monksholin. Price 2s. _kl. DULCIE AND TOTTIE ; or, Tlie Story of an Old-Fashioned Pair. Price 2S. 6d. DULCIE'S LOVE STORY. Price es. 6.1. FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT; or, Tlie Successful Influence of Well Doing. 2S. (5d. TRUE TO THE LAST; or, My Boyhood's Hero. Price 2S. 6J. SIR AYLMERS HEIR. Price 2S. T. Nelson and Sons, London, Edinburgh, and New York, AT LADY TREMAIN'S Page lUL^TlbL^lhuo T-NELSON AMD SONS Molly Melville A Tale for Girls BY E. EVERETT-GREEN AUTHOR OF "THE HEIRESS OF WYLMINGTON,"' "WINNING THE VICTORY," " FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT," " TEMPLE'S TRIAL," " maud melville's marriage," etc. etc.

T. NELSON AND SONS London, Edinburgh, and New York 1S97 CONTENTS. I. CONFIDENCES, .... .... .... .... 9 II. THE FLORAL FETE, .... .... .... .... 30 III. LILIAN'S LOVERS, .... .... .... .... 52 IV. A DIFFICULT QUESTION, .... .... .... 73 V. UNKNOWN RELATIONS, .... .... .... 96 VI. TEMPLE L'ESTRANGE, .... .... .... 117 VII. TWO INVITATIONS, .... .... .... .... 140 VIII. AT ETTRICK, .... .... .. . ... 164 ix. sir Donald's home, .... .... .... 183 X. A CHAPTER OF ADVENTURE, .... .... ... 204 XI. THE ETTRICK GHOST. .... .... .... 225 XII. molly's DILEMMA, .... .... .... ... 247 XIII. A STRANGE MEETING, .... .... .... 207 XIV. IN THE OLD HOME, .... .... .... .... 2!I0 XV. CHIVALROUS LOVE, .... .... .... .... 313 XVI. BETROTHED, .... ... ■■■■ •■■■ 330 XVII. SUNSHINE AND SNOW, .... .... .... 362 XVIII. THE LAST, .... .... .... ■••■ MOLLY MELVILLE.

Chapter I. Confidences

" TV /T OLLY, mavourneen . dreaming alone in the 1 V 1 gloaming as usual ? I wish you had come with us. Really it was great fun ! Now don't tell me you've been crying again ! Molly, Molly ! — why can't you be happy with us ? I'm sure wTe all want you to be happy ; and you are such a darling to me always — a perfect treasure ! I was ever so dull before you came. But I'd rather you wTere anywhere else than unhappy wdth us." The girl addressed in these words turned quickly round from the wdndow at which she was standing, hastily dashing from her eyes the tears which had gathered there. She came forward and laid her hand caressingly upon the shoulder of the bright-eyed young creature wdio had invaded her solitude thus suddenly. CONFIDENCES. " Barbara, dearest, I am not unhappy at being wdth you.

That is quite your mistake. You have all been very good to me. I am more grateful than I can ex plain to you. I used to think in old days that I should so delight in having a sister ; and now I feel as if I had one, and it is quite as nice as ever I thought it would be ! " " That's all very well,'1 answered Barbara, nodding her head with some emphasis, " but if having a sister doesn't make you happy, I don't see the good of the arrange ment." Molly was silent for a moment, as if she hardly knew how to reply to this indictment. Barbara looked at her, and suddenly threw her arms about her neck, saying, — " I am a wretch to talk like that, when you are only grieving for your mother. I don't know how it is, but I don't feel as if I quite understood that feeling. I love my mother, of course, very much, but not as you did yours.

I should not, I think, be heartbroken after nearly two years; but perhaps that is because I am a monster! Sometimes I think I am. I haven't got it in me to love as some people do." Molly smiled a little at this impetuous announcement. " Dearest, it is rather different for you. I was an only child, you know ; and mother and I lived always in the country, and were always together. She was CONFIDENCES. 11 mother and sister and friend all in one ; and I never kept anything from her. Then when father was ill, and we had to take him abroad, we shared everything ; and after he died, and the shock made mother so ill, I was with her always, and was everything to her. You have never tried what that sort of life is ; and how, wdien it comes to an end, it seems as if everything went too." Barbara drew closer to her cousin, and they stood together looking out upon the fading light in the west, as they could see it across the wide square in which Barbara's home was situated.

The air wras hot and full of dust, and a never-ceasing roar came up from the streets below. Barbara did not notice it — she was too well used to it — but it often struck upon Molly's senses as something pitiless and terrible. " Perhaps," said Barbara softly, " if you were some times to talk about your mother — about your life — it would help you. I've never liked to ask. It didn't seem as if it were the sort of thing I'd any business with. I hate to intrude ; and I am so abrupt and clumsy and tactless — you know they all say that. But if it would help you to talk — if it would comfort you — well, I'd like awfully to know everything about you ; for I do love you very much, though I don't think I'm good at loving most people. I generally take it the other way." CONFIDENCES. 12 Molly made no reply in words, but she put her cheek against that of Barbara ; and thus they stood for some minutes very close together — a pretty study for an artist, if one had chanced to see them.

Barbara was dressed all in white, though very simply, as became her position of a girl only just emerging from the schoolroom, and not formally introduced to society. Yet Barbara was just upon twenty, and might have looked for an earlier emancipation, had it not been that her mother desired to see her a little more formed in manner, and also to get one or both of her elder girls off her hands, before presenting Barbara to the social world. This had suited the girl's own views very well. She had no desire to emulate her sisters in their life of social dissipation. She was glad to be rid of her governess, glad to have liberty of choice as to her studies and the hours she kept, glad to appear at afternoon gatherings, and to ride out sometimes in the Row wdth her sisters to see all the fine folk there.

But she would have been greatly bored, at this stage of existence, if she had been forced to the tread-mill of fashionable life ; and as Molly was her companion in her upstairs solitude, she had not found it irksome in the least. Yet Barbara was a handsome girl, and might have made a success in London drawing-rooms. Her features were rather too marked, perhaps, for absolute beauty ; MOLLY AND HER COUSIN. Page 12, CONFIDENCES. 13 but they were clearly cut and well modelled, and showed force of character and determination. The eyes were very dark, bright, and sparkling, veiled by long black lasnes that matched the rather thick brows above them. Her hair was almost black, although in sun light it showed a few gleams of ruddy chestnut lurking in its coils. It was very abundant and rebellious, and gave her some trouble in the dressing.

In figure she was tall and slightly angular at the present stage of her development ; and her movements, though free and unfettered, were rather like those of a young colt or calf that has not yet quite learned the full use of its long limbs. Yet there was a certain wild grace about Barbara which gave promise for the future, and her mother was beginning to feel some secret pride in her, in spite of her having been decidedly the " ugly duck ling " of her trio of daughters. Molly was a singular foil and contrast to her cousin. She was not quite so tall, and her graceful slimness was altogether different from Barbara's long-limbed lanki ness. Her face was very fair and pale ; and when the colour came, it w-as in fitful waves, and with a peach like bloom which was very lovely. There was a ten der sadness in her blue eyes, and the sweet face was pensive in expression, while the subdued wistfulness of the o-lance haunted many hearts among those who had been brought into contact wdth her.

The face was CONFIDENCES. 14 framed in softly-curling hair of a golden brown tint. Molly's hair had been cut short during the fever which had followed upon her mother's death, and it had grown very little since. It clustered round her brow in innumerable little tendrils, and made a fitting frame for the well-poised little head. At the first glance a stranger would have guessed Barbara the elder of the two, but a closer look would have told a different tale. Tliere was that in Molly's face which told of suffering and pain, and which had given to her a more formed character than belonged to her age. She was two-and twenty, and had been bereft of both her parents wdthin the past two years. These two cousins had grown very fond of each other during the time they had spent together. Bar bara had shown a great deal more tenderness and gentleness than any one believed her to possess, when Molly had been brought here broken down and sorrow ful, declaring that she would not " come out," or do anything of that sort, till Molly was well and happy, and could come w ith her.

This arrangement had suited all the household very well, and the pair had spent their time together in pleasant quarters of their own, learning to understand each other, learning to love each other, and quite con tent with their isolation from the gay world below and around them. It was only quite lately that Mrs. Tracy CONFIDENCES. 15 had shown a disposition to tempt Molly from her seclu sion, having suggested that Barbara should accompany her sometimes to an afternoon gathering. Barbara was of opinion that it would now do Molly good to go about a little, and wdth the view of decoying her out she had consented to go herself. Rather to her surprise, she found that Molly greatly enjoyed these occasional dissipations, and came home full of merry chatter about them. But Molly had not, so far, consented to appear anywhere.

She seemed to shrink from society wdth an almost morbid dread. And wdien Barbara left her, she appeared to fall into sorrowful reveries, so that her companion wrould not infrequently return to find her in tears. Warm-hearted Barbara could not bear this, but she knew not howr to effect a cure. When Molly first came to be her companion, Barbara had not dared to ask her about her past life and her troubles. She knew the bare outline of her cousin's history : howr she had been born in an old manor-house in Yorkshire, had lived there with her parents till she was nearly twenty, and had then gone abroad for the sake of Sir Humphrey's health. She knew that, on the death of the baronet, the house and title had passed to a second cousin, who, having made a " low marriage," as it was called, was allowed no communication with Mollyr.

Barbara's mother, the Hon. Mrs. Tracy, had gone to be with her sister, Lady Melville, at the last, and had promised CONFIDENCES. to be a mother to Molly as long as she should be alone in the world. All these things were w-ell known to Bar bara, and were occasionally mentioned between the cousins. But she had never dared to ask Molly of her own inner life, nor of those things upon wdiich she could not now dwell without sorrow and pain. So the habit of silence had grown up between them on this point, and the silence had never been really broken. And it was with a wondering sense of questioning, as to wdiether this silence were good for Molly, that Barbara had put her tentative suggestion to-night. It was answered first by a rush of tears to Molly's eyes, which quite prevented her from giving a verbal answer.

She could only put her face very close to Bar bara's, as if in mute comprehension of the sympathy proffered ; and then, after they had stood thus for some time, she said, — " Perhaps I will — by-and-by. I never thought you would care to knowr. You see, yrou never sawr my father or mother, or my old home. I wdsh you had been to see me when wre lived there. But then I hardly knew I had cousins, though to be sure mother used to write letters to Aunt Tracy, and to have letters and photographs." " Yes ; but mother thought it such a pity you always lived up there, where tliere was no society, nothing but horrid mill-owners buying up the houses and building CONFIDENCES. 17 their smutty mills ! I used to hear her talk sometimes, and say it would bore her to death to go there. She had been once — and that was enough."

Molly smiled a little, and then sighed. " Yes, I do not think it would have suited your mother. But we were very happy. We did not care so very much about society. We had each other ; and there were some nice people round us too, even among the despised mill-owners." " Tell me about them ! " said Barbara, brightening up. " I tell you what, we'll have a nice cosy evening together. We shall have dinner sent up to us to-night, because there is company coming. Mamma suggested that we should go down, but I said I didn't think you would care to go. But, Molly, won't you come out sometimes — just when I do — just to quiet little things ? I don't like leaving you all alone. It makes you get thinking and grieving, and I can't bear that." " It is silly of me. I won't do it any more," said Molly, turning away and trying to recover her composure, as sounds notified that the servant was coming to light up the room and lay the table for their dinner.

Secretly Barbara and Molly both rather delighted in those evenings when there was company below, and they were allowed to have their dinner up here alone together. Barbara was never quite at her ease in her mother's presence, and Molly had never grown altogether used to (921) CONFIDENCES. making one of a family party. Besides, there wrere things said and done by her relatives which often jarred upon her; and even the likeness she often observed between Mrs. Tracy and her dead mother struck painfully^ upon the girl's sensitive nerves. A real resemblance in nature would have been a true source of comfort to her, but there was none. Mrs. Tracy was a woman of the world to her finger-tips, and bore herself with an aplomb and well-bred self-assurance that were as different from Lady Melville's gentle dignity and sweetness, as light is from darkness.

And yTet there was a superficial resemblance between the pair in general aspect, and in some little tricks of manner; so that Molly could never quite get over the feeling that her aunt was in some sort a caricature or travesty of her mother, and she shrank from any reminders of this with a curious intensity of feeling. She could not speak of this to Barbara of course, yet it was one of the strongest causes of her re luctance to make any appearance in her aunt's social world. " But I think it would do you good to come," said Barbara, returning to the charge as they sat together over their dainty little dinner by the light of a shaded lamp. " It is really more amusing than I thought ; and some of the people are quite interesting, especially the rather old ones. To-day I saw two whom I quite liked.

CONFIDENCES. 19 I think you would like them too, if you would only come out of your shell." " Tell me about them," said Molly, who liked to hear Barbara rattle away about her doings, and rather en joyed her keen comments on the things she heard and saw. " Well, for one thing, Sir Donald was there — the man mamma is after for Lilian. I don't think he really cares for Lilian myself," added Barbara, with a saucy look ; " but I suppose mamma does, so we always rather hunt him when he is anywhere in the field." " Barbara, dear, I don't like you to speak so of your mother." " Well, it's true for all that," returned the girl, wdth a laughing look in her eyes, and a little curl of the lip that indicated a certain youthful scorn. " I can't help seeing what is patent to the meanest capacity. Lilian herself cares twice as much for Mr. Bellingham, who is really a very good fellow, and sings like a nightingale.

But, unfortunately, he has no handle to his name, and no big fortune, so mamma snubs him continually, and fawns on Sir Donald every time she sees him." " And what does Sir Donald do ? " asked Molly, unable to restrain a laugh. " Oh, he takes it very well. He's very nice and polite in a manly sort of a way. I like him for that. He is a man and not a mere dandy, though he dresses well CONFIDENCES. 20 and always looks spruce and very tidy, which is wrhat I like in a man. To-day he talked to me a great deal more than he did to Lilian. I don't think mamma was quite pleased, but Lilian didn't mind. She got away wdth her nightingale, and they had quite a nice time together in the tea-room, where mamma couldn't get at them. So Sir Donald had to take me, and we had a good deal of talk. I told him all about you, and he quite agreed with me that you had better try to go about more, and not stay moping here all alone !

" Molly flushed partly with surprise, and partly with a touch of vexation at being discussed thus with a stranger. " Barbara, dear, I don't think — " she began, but was instantly cut eagerly short. " Oh, you mustn't think I really said much. Only he asked me about wdiat I did, and whether I was ' out ' yet ; and of course that made me say something about you. Really it wasn't much, and Sir Donald isn't a boy ; he's a man. Why, there are quite a few grey hairs on his temples ; I daresay he's not so very far off forty ! " — as if that were about the age of Methuselah — " that's why Lilian gets bored with him. She only cares for boys. For my part, I think men are much nicer. Athletic boys I like," added Barbara, as if making a righteous concession, " they have some fun in CONFIDENCES. 21 them ; but the sort of creature who goes to afternoon parties with a flower in his button-hole and scent on his handkerchief — oh, I can't abide him.

I feel in clined to thrash him. I wonder what mamma would say if I did ! " The irrepressible Barbara went off into a fit of laughter, and Molly's gentle remonstrances were quite lost. " My brother says so — so why shouldn't I ? " she asked saucily. " But to resume our subject. You needn't be afraid that I said anything you wouldn't have liked. I have to talk about you, of course, when people ask me things — because you belong to my life, you know. And then there was Lady Tremain ; she talked to me too, and she asked about you. Now you ivoidd like Lady Tremain if you were to see her. I'm quite sure of that." " Is she the widow you told me about once before ? Didn't she marry a very old man, just because of his title and fortune ? I think I heard Lilian say so once." Barbara looked hot and indignant.

She was at an age when she was very intolerant of anything which looked like inconsistency, and she had a great idea that her sisters were by no means free from the vice of the matrimonial ambition which they so often animadverted upon in others. CONFIDENCES. 22 " I don't believe it ! " she cried. " Sir Donald himself told me to-day that Lady Tremain nearly broke her heart over her husband's death. He was much older than she was, but she loved him with all her heart. He has a place near to one of theirs, he told me, and he is a great friend of hers. I think they are two very nice people, and I wish you would come out of your shell, so that you might know them. I'm sure they wTould be kind to you. I saw the tears come into Lady Tremain's eyes when I told her about your being lonely and sad.

And she said, ' Poor child, poor child ! ' in such a kind tone. Most people never seem to have a bit of feeling for anything — it's all just show and jabber and frippery ! " " On the top," answered Molly ; " but perhaps there is more feeling than shows deeper down." Barbara put her head on one side and considered. " In one way, perhaps," she answered. " There is Lady Tremain, you see. Nobody would be able to tell from her manner Avhether she cared for her husband or not. But Sir Donald says it was a great effort for her to come into society again, and that she would not have done so if she had just thought about herself. But she has her duties to keep up, and all that sort of thing. There is sometimes a look in her eyes which makes you feel that she is not caring for things — especially when music that is sad and sweet is going on ; and as she CONFIDENCES. -:■> listens, you can see the look in her eyes.

But she goes about and talks like other people, although one would never call her flippant or frivolous ! " Molly could not help smiling at Barbara's enthusiasm. " I think your two new friends had better marry each other," she remarked, " since they are both such paragons, and seem to understand each other so well." Barbara looked a little taken aback. " Oh ! " she said, " I never thought of that. I don't think I should like that at all." Molly could not restrain one of her soft, low laughs. " I'm afraid, dear, they would not consult your feel ings in the matter. But I don't know why you should mind." " Oh, well," said Barbara, with frank unreserve, " it was only that I was thinking this afternoon how nice it would be if Sir Donald would fall in love with you ! " A little quick flush rose on Molly's cheek.

But she did not smile, and looked gravely back into Barbara's fearless eyes. " Barbara, dear," she said, " I don't think I quite like people to make jokes about falling in love. Love, as it ouo-ht to be between married people, is a very sacred O and beautiful thing. I know, because I saw it in my CONFIDENCES. 24 father and mother. Indeed it is not a thing to speak of lightly and jestingly." Barbara's intelligent face took a more earnest look. "Molly," she cried, "you're not a bit like anybody I have been used to; but you're a darling, and you're cpiite right ! I can feel in my heart that you are. Indeed I didn't mean anything flippant and foolish ; but I did tliink Sir Donald would make a kind, good, tender husband, and that anybody might be proud and happy to win his love. I could not help wishing it might be you, and not a butterfly like Lilian — that is all.

You're not angry with me for saying that, are you ? " " Oh no, dear, not angry one bit," answered Molly, gently ; " but I don't like that sort of talk. It seems to take the sacredness out of things — if you know what I mean." Molly's face was still flushed, and Barbara, who was regarding her with admiring attention, suddenly asked softly, — " Tliere isn't anybody else is there, Molly, mavourneen ? " Molly's eyes were raised with a questioning look in them. " I mean, nobody else before that you cared for — like that ? " explained Barbara. " Mamma said there could not be. I once heard her talking about you. She said CONFIDENCES. 25 you had never been into any sort of proper society, and had never seen anybody but mill-owners and that sort of persons," and there was a little unconscious scorn in the girl's voice, as though she deemed Molly unspeak ably superior to any of that unknown class.

But upon Molly's lips there was a fine little smile, the meaning of which Barbara was not able entirely to understand. " Your mother was right in a way," she said. " We did not have much of the county society which you are used to when you are away from London. There were not many persons in our neighbourhood with whom your mother would have cared to associate. But let me tell you, Barbara, that among those despised mill owners, as you call them, I have met men — to say nothing of the girls and the women — more chivalrous, brave, unselfish, and true, than, from what I have heard and seen here, I am likely to meet again. So do not run away with the very false idea that those qualities are the prerogative of the idle aristocracy, for it is a very great mistake." " I will not ! " cried Barbara, eagerly, stirred to inci pient enthusiasm by something in Molly's look and tone.

" Now let us sit by the fire, and you shall tell me about these people. I love to hear how other people live, and what they think and do. Tell me about them, if it will not hurt you ; I like to know about brave and beautiful CONFIDENCES. things. Was there an explosion, and did they risk their lives ? Go on. Tell me all about it." "I'm afraid there is no very exciting tale to tell — people can be all that I have said without doing those heroic deeds that get into the newspapers — but I did know one who risked his life deliberately to save that of his uncle, when the latter was to be attacked by some of his turned-off mill-hands, who were lying in wait. He would have been killed that night, we all believe, if Temple, his nephew, had not ridden out at the risk of his life to save him." " Oh, I like to hear things like that !

" cried Molly. " Who is Temple ? Was he a mill-owner too ? " " Not exactly. He was Mr. Chetwynds nephew. He and his brother and sister had come to live there. Temple lives there still, but the other brother went off to Australia ; and the sister married Jack Chetwynd, and Temple lives with them, I suppose. But I have not heard anything about them for a long time. Everything that had to do with the old life seems like a dream now. A look of tender regret had crept into Molty's eyes. Barbara moved a little closer, and stole her hand into that of her companion. " Did you — don't scold me for asking — did you care for Temple ? " she asked softly. " We were very fond of him, mother and I," answered CONFIDENCES. 27 Molly in a dreamy tone. " He loved mother so dearly, so dearly ; and we had him with us often.

Once when he was so ill, after he had done that thing, he came to us and stayed till he was well. We always seemed to understand each other. Mother spoke of him when she was dying. His was almost the last name on her lips. But I have never seen him since ; I have never been able to tell him. I wonder if I ever shall ? " " I would have written," said Barbara quickly, much interested by this little glimpse behind the scenes of her cousin's past life. " Perhaps I should have done so just at first, if I had not been ill. Afterwards the time seemed to have gone by. Besides, I had never written to Temple. Mother did sometimes ; but you know I was brought up dif ferently from you. Mother w^ould not have liked my corresponding with him, though she loved him dearly. He was away in California when we had to take father abroad.