The Odds - Ethel May Dell (read full novel .TXT) 📗

make her mark in spite of it. Her beauty is extraordinary, and I cannot believe that Providence has destined her for a farmer's wife."
It was on a foggy afternoon at the end of November that Lady Caryl's carriage turned in at the Vicarage gates for the second state call of the year.
Molly received the visitor alone. Her mother was upstairs with a bronchial attack.
Lady Caryl, handsome, elderly, and aristocratic, entered the shabby drawing-room with her most gracious air. She sat and talked for a while upon various casual subjects. Molly poured out the tea and responded with her usual cheery directness. Lady Caryl did not awe her. Her father was wont to remark that Molly was impudent as a robin and brave as a lion.
After a slight pause in the conversation Lady Caryl turned from parish affairs with an abruptness somewhat characteristic of her, but by no means impetuous.
"Did you ever chance to meet Earl Wyverton, my dear Mary?" she inquired. "He spent a few days here in the summer."
"Yes," said Molly. "He came to see us several times."
The beautiful colour rose slightly as she replied, but she looked straight at her questioner with a directness almost boyish.
"Ah!" said Lady Caryl. "I was away from the Manor at the time, or I should have asked him to stay there. I have always liked him."
"We like him too," said Molly, simply.
"He is a gentleman," rejoined Lady Caryl, with emphasis. "And that makes his misfortune the more regrettable."
"Misfortune!" echoed Molly.
She started a little as she uttered the word--so little that none but a very keen observer would have noticed it.
"Ah!" said Lady Caryl. "You have not heard, I see. I suppose you would not hear. But it has been the talk of the town. They say he has lost practically every penny he possessed over some gigantic American speculation, and that to keep his head above water he will have to sell or let every inch of land he owns. It is particularly to be regretted, as he has always taken his responsibilities seriously. Indeed, there are many who regard his principles as eccentrically fastidious. I am not of the number, my dear Mary. Like you, I have a high esteem for him, and he has my most heartfelt sympathy."
She ceased to speak, and there was a little pause.
"How dreadful!" Molly said then. "It must be far worse to lose a lot of money than to be poor from the beginning."
The flush had quite passed from her face. She even looked slightly pale.
Lady Caryl laid down her cup and rose. "That would be so, no doubt," she said. "I think I shall try to persuade him to come to us at the end of the year. And your sister is to be married in January? It will be quite an event for you all. I am sure you are very busy--even more so than usual, my dear Mary."
She made her stately adieu and swept away.
After her departure Molly bore the teacups to the kitchen and washed them with less than her usual cheery rapidity. And when the day's work was done she sat for a long while in her icy bedroom, with the moonlight flooding all about her, thinking, thinking deeply.
* * * * *


It was the eve of Phyllis's wedding-day, and Molly was hard at work in the kitchen. The children were all at home, but she had resolutely turned every one out of this, her own particular domain, that she might complete her gigantic task of preparation undisturbed. The whole household were in a state of seething excitement. There were guests in the house as well, and every room but the kitchen seemed crowded to its utmost capacity. Molly was busier than she had ever been in her life, and the whirl of work had nearly swept away even her serenity. She was very tired, too, though she was scarcely conscious of it. Her hands went from one task to another with almost mechanical skill.
She was bending over the stove, stirring a delicacy that required her minute attention when there came a knock on the kitchen door.
She did not even turn her head as she responded to it. "Go away!" she called. "I can't talk to anyone."
There was a pause--a speculative pause--during which Molly bent lower over her saucepan and concluded that the intruder had departed.
Then she became suddenly aware that the door had opened quietly and someone had entered. She could not turn her head at the moment.
"Oh, do go away!" she said. "I haven't a second to spare; and if this goes wrong I shall be hours longer."
The kitchen door closed promptly and obligingly, and Molly, with a little sigh of relief, concentrated her full attention once more upon the matter in hand.
The last critical phase of the operation arrived, and she lifted the saucepan from the fire and turned round with it to the table.
In that instant she saw that which so disturbed her equanimity that she nearly dropped saucepan and contents upon the kitchen floor.
Earl Wyverton was standing with his back against the door, watching her with eyes that shone quizzically under the meeting brows.
He came forward instantly, and actually took the saucepan out of her hands.
"Let me," he said.
Molly let him, being for the moment powerless to do otherwise.
"Now," he said, "what does one do--pour it into this glass thing? I see. Don't watch me, please; I'm nervous."
Molly uttered a curious little laugh that was not wholly steady.
"How did you come here?" she said.
He did not answer her till he had safely accomplished what he had undertaken. Then he set down the saucepan and looked at her.
"I am staying with Lady Caryl," he told her gravely. "I arrived this afternoon. And I have come here to present a humble offering to your sister, and to make a suggestion equally humble to you. I arrived here in this room by means of a process called bribery and corruption. But if you are too busy to listen to me, I will wait."
"I can listen," Molly said.
He had not even shaken hands with her, and she felt strangely uncertain of herself. She was even conscious of a childish desire to run away.
He took her at her word at once. "Thank you," he said. "Now, do you remember a certain conversation that took place between us six months ago?"
"I remember," she said.
An odd sense of powerlessness had taken possession of her, and she knew it had become visible to him, for she saw his face alter.
"I know I'm ugly," he said, abruptly; "but I'm not frowning, believe me."
She understood the allusion and laughed rather faintly. "I'm not afraid of you, Lord Wyverton," she said.
He smiled at her. "Thank you," he said. "That's kind. I'm coming to the point. There are just two questions I have to ask you, and I've done. First, have they told you that I'm a ruined man?"
Molly's face became troubled. "Yes," she said. "Lady Caryl told me. I was very sorry--for you."
She uttered the last two words with a conscious effort. He was mastering her in some subtle fashion, drawing her by some means irresistible. She felt almost as if some occult force were at work upon her. He did not thank her for her sympathy. Without comment he passed on to his second question.
"And are you still disposed to be generous?" he asked her, with a directness that surpassed her own. "Is your offer--that splendid offer of yours--still open? Or have you changed your mind? You mustn't pity me overmuch. I have enough to live on--enough for two"--he smiled again that pleasant, sudden smile of his--"if you will do the cooking and polish the front-door knob."
"What will you do?" demanded Molly, with a new-found independence of tone that his light manner made possible.
"I shall clean the boots," he answered, promptly, "or swab the floors, or, it may be"--he bent slightly towards her, and she saw a new light in his eyes as he ended--"it may be, stand by my wife to lift the saucepan off the fire, or do all her other little jobs when she is tired."
Again, and more strongly, she felt that he was drawing her, and she knew that she was going--going into deep waters in which his hand alone could hold her up. She stood before him silently. Her heart was beating very fast. The surging of the deep sea was in her ears. It almost frightened her, though she knew she had no cause to fear.
And then, suddenly, his hands were upon her shoulders and his eyes were closely searching her face.
"I offer you myself, Molly," he said, and there was ringing passion in his voice, though he controlled it. "I loved you from the moment you offered to marry me. Is not that enough?"
Yes; it was enough. The mastery of it rolled in upon her in a full flood-tide that no power of reasoning could withstand. She drew one long, gasping breath--and yielded. The splendour of that moment was greater than anything she had ever known. Its intensity was almost too vivid to be borne.
She stretched up her arms to him with a little sob of pure and glad surrender. There was no hiding what was in her heart. She revealed it to him without words, but fully, gloriously, convincingly, as she yielded her lips to his. And she forgot that she had desired to marry him for his money. She forgot that the family clothes were threadbare and the family cares almost impossible to cope with. She knew only that better thing which is greater than poverty or pain or death itself. And, knowing it, she possessed more than the whole world, and found it enough.
Late that night, when at last Molly lay down to rest with the morrow's bride by her side, there came the final revelation of that amazing day. Neither she nor Wyverton had spoken a word to any of that which was between them. It was not their hour; or, rather, the time had not arrived for others to share in it.
But as the two girls clasped one another on that last night of companionship Phyllis presently spoke his name.
"I actually haven't told you what Lord Wyverton did, Moll," she said. "You would never guess. It was so unexpected, so overwhelming. You know he came to tea. You were busy and didn't see him. Jim was there, too. He came straight up to me and said the kindest things to us both. We were standing away from the rest. And he put an envelope into my hand and asked me, with his funny smile, to accept it for an old friend's sake. He disappeared mysteriously directly after. And--and--Molly, it was a cheque for a thousand pounds."
"Good gracious!" said Molly, sharply.
"Wasn't it simply amazing?" Phyllis continued. "It nearly took my breath away. And then Lady Caryl arrived, and I showed it to her. And she said that the story of his ruin was false, that she thought he himself had invented it for a special reason that had ceased to exist. And she said that she thought he was richer now than he had ever been before. Why, Molly, Molly--what has happened? What is it?"
Molly had suddenly sprung upright in bed. The moonlight was shining on her beautiful face, and she was smiling tremulously, while her eyes were wet with tears.
She reached out both her arms with a