XVIII

If a man be kind to a pretty woman shallit not be counted to him for righteousness?

If a man be kind to a pretty woman shall

it not be counted to him for righteousness?

WhenElsie Carston got the letter from Diana with its P.S., pregnant with meaning, asking her to telegraph for her at once on any pretext she chose, Elsie was triumphant. Marcus had failed. Not even the attractions of Scotland could hold Diana. She was evidently dying to get back to her aunt. It was no good forcing things down the throats, as it were, of young people: it was not what you gave them that counted, it was what you were to them.

“Shan’t, Diana is coming back,” she announced with pride. This was her triumph—she was the chosen one.

“Then shall I go to my darlin’ Uncle Marcus?” asked Shan’t, radiant; “oh, do let me—for once.”

“No, dear, Uncle Marcus won’t want you.”

“Why won’t he?”

“I don’t know why, but he won’t!”

“Then I shall write to him,” said Shan’t—“a very, very long letter, and he will write back and ask his darlin’ little Shan’t to come and stay withhim—see if he doesn’t!” And Shan’t opened her eyes wide—and nodded her head at Aunt Elsie three times. It was not what Shan’t said, it was the way she said it that Aunt Elsie found so cruel. Why had this wretched uncle ever come into their lives? For years he had refused to accept responsibilities, and now that the children had come to an age when they were most charming and attractive, he had suddenly awakened to a belated sense of duty. It was very annoying. But Diana was coming home and Elsie went up to tell Mrs. Sloane so.

She at least would rejoice with Elsie and would not affect an absurd love for Uncle Marcus. Shan’t must have known how very disagreeable it was always hearing Marcus talked of as if he were the only uncle in the world. Elsie found Mrs. Sloane where she best loved to be, in the garden. From the seat on which she sat she looked through a gap cut in the tall yew hedges on to the range of hills—blue in the distance. Between her and the hills were golden cornfields, green fields, fields where the red soil was newly turned, and trees—dark fir trees standing like sentinels against the sky-line, plumed beeches, spreading oaks—and at her feet every flower that grows, rioting, singing at the tops of their voices, in wide borders, for flowers do sing for those who love them. Was it any wonderthat her face was beautiful when she turned it in welcome towards Elsie?

“Proud woman!” said Elsie, “I see in your smile the measure of your penstemons; in your eyes the pride of your hollyhocks; in your whole demeanour the glory of your garden. I don’t believe there is any woman more difficult to bear with than she for whom all things grow.”

Mrs. Sloane supposed it was not of gardens, though, that Elsie had come to talk. Her look was not of gardens. Their look of peace was not hers: there was something of aggression in her manner. It could not be directed against a woman so peaceable, so peace-loving as herself. She smiled, and Elsie was bound to admit she was right.

“Yet you are an aggravating woman, with your perfections always before us. Tommy Wandle told me last night he had been to see your new pig-sties. He was so awe-struck that I asked him what they were like, and he said, ‘I thought they was a post-office, miss.’ Now a woman whose pig-sties are like post-offices is not a neighbour to be loved as one’s self, but lend me your attention, for I am in trouble.”

There was no nearer way to the heart of Mrs. Sloane than this.

She begged Elsie to tell her everything, which Elsie did, and Mrs. Sloane was delightfully interested.She asked just the right questions—a great art this, and one that makes dear friends of those who possess that power of discrimination. She was shocked at Shan’t’s love of change, and hoped with Elsie that nothing of an unhappy nature had occurred at Glenbossie. It was possible, of course, that Diana had had some little love-affair.

“Impossible!” said Elsie, “she would have told me.”

“She may be coming home in order to do that.”

Of course, that was possible, Elsie admitted, and added: “There is a Captain Hastings there.”

Mrs. Sloane wondered if he could be the son of her old friend? If he were and resembled his father and grandfather, she had every reason to believe the danger to Diana must have been considerable—it was quite possible she was coming home to bring good news.

“Then there is Mr. St. Jermyn too.”

Mrs. Sloane looked serious. Diana had been subjected to great danger, on all sides—and they, too, of course, had run considerable risks of unhappiness. Mr. Maitland was a clever matchmaker and he had chosen very well. One man was rich and the other he could help to make rich. Diana was very happily situated with an uncle sorich and so devoted—devoted from a sense of duty only, of course, said Mrs. Sloane.

“But he is a very kind man,” she added; “here is evidence of it.” And she drew a letter from a bag that lay beside her on the seat. She opened it and read: “‘I cannot tell you what I feel about Mr. Maitland—he is a perfect angel—and I shall love him as long as I live and we shall pray for him every night of our lives.’

“High praise that,” said Mrs. Sloane, smiling; “it comes from a very pretty young woman too.”

“I don’t say he wouldn’t be kind to a pretty young woman and I am not sure that it is greatly to his credit to admit it,” said Elsie.

“Elsie, Elsie,” said Mrs. Sloane, laughing, “I see what was once a charming and delightful nature growing warped and—shall we say a little soured?—and all because a man—in every other way we will admit it, depraved and horrible—is kind to the children of his sister.”

“Not soured,” said Elsie, laughing; “I’m quite nice really—I don’t really dislike him, even, but I do resent his suddenly awaking to his responsibilities and treating me as though I had no right to exist.” Then she added: “But tell me about this young woman—if it can be told.”

It could be told, and Elsie learned how much Shan’t had had to do in the matter: how she haddrawn Uncle Marcus into the affair, and at the end of the story Elsie could not easily impute any great blame to Uncle Marcus.

“I think,” said Mrs. Sloane, “he will receive a shock one of these days and we must do what we can to help him to bear it.”

“You don’t mean he—cared for her?” asked Elsie.

“No—but I am quite certain one of these days—very soon, perhaps—he will receive a piece of wedding cake, and with it a card, printed in silver, and the name Madder will be crossed out and the name Flueyn will remain—also in silver. Socially it will shock him—pain him that he could have been so kind to any one so lacking the social sense—but she will be very happy.”

“Was she—is she—very pretty?” asked Elsie.

“She is very pretty—I used to think particularly pretty when she raised her doggy eyes to the defenceless Uncle Marcus, for he was defenceless until he knew she wanted to marry Mr. Flueyn.”

Elsie said he might have guessed she didn’t care for him, and Mrs. Sloane said that was a thing men hardly ever guessed.

“How do you understand men so well?” asked Elsie, and Mrs. Sloane said it was perhaps because she loved them so well.

Aunt Elsie sent off the telegram, of course making no excuse. If she wanted Diana she was perfectly at liberty to say so; she was delighted she was coming—delighted!

But when Diana came she was not so delighted, because it was a different Diana who came back from the one who had gone away. She was reserved, a little hard, and a little defiant. Aunt Elsie hoped she would look better after a night’s rest, she must be tired and hungry. Diana admitted hunger: she was frightfully hungry. Aunt Elsie, up in arms at once, supposed Uncle Marcus had at least given her a dinner-basket? Diana, defending Uncle Marcus, said he was in no way to blame. He had given her a parcel, she had asked for it instead of a basket; but when she had opened the parcel, she discovered the only things in it were two halves of a cocoanut shell and a flask of whiskey—not sustaining in the ordinary sense of the word.

“Do you mean to say,” asked Aunt Elsie with a righteous indignation the force of which shook her, “that he played a practical joke?—a man of his age—how abominable!”

Diana vowed it was too good a joke for Uncle Marcus to have perpetrated, and as a matter of fact it was the only part of the journey she had enjoyed, which was quite true, though she could not tell Elsie why. If Miles could play a practicaljoke, she had argued to herself, he could not be so angry as she imagined he was, though why he should be angry at all she could not imagine. Mr. St. Jermyn had understood the joke, poor as it had been, but Miles had not spoken to her after he came back from the island and the next morning he was gone. She could not tell Aunt Elsie this because it would mean telling her a great many other things that she could not tell any one.

Miles had not even shown her Robinson, the little bird he had found on the island—every one else had seen it and it had pecked every one’s fingers but hers.

The mistake Pillar had made with the luncheon-basket remained the one bright spot on a dark horizon because she did not know it was Pillar’s mistake.

“What is Scotland like?” asked Shan’t.

“There are rocks and burns—and hills and lochs,” said Diana absent-mindedly—for her heart was still there.

“How lovely!” sighed Shan’t, knowing nothing of lochs and burns, but Diana had been there and Uncle Marcus was there and she did so want to go. “And what else?”

“On an island in the middle of the sea there was a little bird that would have died if some one hadn’t rescued it.”

“In the mid-dle of the sea?” asked Shan’t—incredulous.

“Yes.”

“And did some one rescue the darlin’ little bird?”

“Yes—”

“What was it called?”

“Robinson.”

“Did it know it was?”

“Was what?”

“Called by that name?”

“No—it was christened that by the—person who rescued it.”

“Not properly christened?” A good Churchwoman was Shan’t.

“No—not quite properly.”

“And what else are there in—Scotland?”

“There are grouse and deer and fish and heather—and moss—”

“Do you like it better than anywhere?”

Diana didn’t answer.

“Better than the seaside?” went on Shan’t.

Still Diana did not answer.

“Better than Hastings?” persisted Shan’t.

“What did you say, Shan’t?”

“I said—did you like Scotland best or—Hastings, where we go to the seaside sometimes?”

“I like Hastings best,” said Diana, and she caught Shan’t in her arms; “but, darling, you must never tell any one—promise.”

“Scotland wouldn’t mind, because you do like it, too, don’t you?”

“I love it.”

“I wish I could go there!”

Diana didn’t see why she shouldn’t. She would write and suggest it to Uncle Marcus: she had to write and explain, so far as she could, her running away. He would be very angry, she knew. She wrote:

Dearest Marcus—Uncle no longer—I feel the age you don’t look, so I shall call you Marcus. It was cowardly to run away, wasn’t it? But I could not stand the atmosphere, it was too heavy. I was an idiot, but not more than that, and it was a poor joke, I admit it. I had a lovely time in spite of it, and I thank you thousands of times. I want you to ask Shan’t. She would love it so, and she would be no trouble whatever. John could look after her all day. I really think she would amuse you. I am glad I came home; Aunt Elsie, I am afraid, is in for an attack of sciatica. She was so pleased to see me. Who else has such a ridiculous aunt and such an absurd uncle as I have?

She was going to enclose a letter from Shan’t, having promised not to look at it.

“Promise?” asked Shan’t, folding it.

Diana promised. There was nothing Shan’t liked better than to write letters all by herself.

This is the one she wrote all by herself that Diana enclosed in hers “without looking”:

Dear uncle marcus, I mean my dearling will you ask me to come to scotland becawse I do love it so diana is very well but she loves hastings please say yes darling uncle marcus from your lovingShan’t.

And this is the letter that brought Uncle Marcus down from Scotland by the first train. All personal feeling must now go to the wind. What Miss Carston felt about the matter he did not care. She must tell him what she knew. She must help him. There could be now no jealousy between them. The child they loved was unhappy; he had seen that. Miss Carston must by now have seen it. Their hearts were united in a common cause. Diana must be happy. If she loved Hastings, it was the duty of Uncle Marcus, without making it difficult for Diana, to find out if Hastings loved her. Marcus was morally certain he did. Of course he did! He had fished with her and had shot withher; they had walked together and talked—Heavens, how they had talked! Didn’t Marcus know it to his cost? But nothing would matter if Diana were happy in the end and Elsie must help to that end. It was not a question of which of them had the means to make her happy; she might take all thekudosso long as Diana was happy.

Never had Uncle Marcus reached such heights of self-effacement. He now saw clearly enough that the feud between him and Miss Carston had been in the nature of a joke—a poor joke, but a joke. It had amused them to imagine themselves enemies. They were now fighters in a common cause.

Dear little Shan’t had told him all he wanted to know—in her innocence she had lightened his path and he now saw clearly. It only remained for Aunt Elsie to be as frank with him as he meant to be with her.

Aunt Elsie, knowing nothing of all this, was laid up on the sofa with an attack of sciatica and with her was Diana sympathizing.

Diana meanwhile was looking out of the window. “Why, there’s Uncle Marcus!” she exclaimed. “What in the world has he come for?”

As Uncle Marcus jumped out of the car a thought struck her. “Aunt Elsie,” she said, “you are to say nothing to Uncle Marcus, swear—promise—Itrust to you—here is your chance—promise!”

“What do you mean? I know nothing.”

“That is not the point: you are not to discuss me! I won’t have it! Promise? Darling—I love youso—promise!”

Aunt Elsie promised; Diana had taken her middle stump with a “googlie.” Rebecca came to say, would Miss Carston see Mr. Maitland for a few moments? He had come from Scotland on purpose?

Miss Carston would see Mr. Maitland, and this—according to Diana—is what happened—

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