"You needn't be cross with me, Diana"
She rose suddenly with a bitten lip. Her eyes blazed--and her cheeks. She walked to the window and stood looking out, in a whirlwind of feeling and memory, hiding her face as best she could from the girl who sat watching her with an expression half sulky, half insolent. Diana was thinking of moments--recalling forgotten fragments of dialogue--in the past, which showed her father's opinion of his Barbadoes brother-in-law: "A grasping, ill-bred fellow"--"neither gratitude, nor delicacy"--"has been the evil genius of his wife, and will be the ruin of his children." She did not believe a word of Fanny's story--not a word of it!
She turned impetuously. Then, as her eyes met Fanny's, a shock ran through her--the same sudden, inexplicable fear which had seized on Mrs. Colwood, only more sickening, more paralyzing. And it was a fear which ran back to and linked itself with the hour of heart-searching in the wood. What was Fanny thinking of?--what was in her mind--on her lips? Impulses she could not have defined, terrors to which she could give no name, crept over Diana's will and disabled it. She trembled from head to foot--and gave way.
She walked up to her cousin.
"Fanny, is there any letter--anything of grandpapa's--or of my mother's--that you could show me?"
"No! It was a promise, I tell you--there was no writing. But my mother could swear to it."
The girl faced her cousin without flinching. Diana sat down again, white and tremulous, the moment of energy, of resistance, gone. In a wavering voice she began to explain that she had, in fact, been inquiring into her affairs, that the money was not actually at her disposal, that to provide it would require an arrangement with her bankers, and the depositing of some securities; but that, before long, it should be available.
Fanny drew a long breath. She had not expected the surrender. Her eyes sparkled, and she began to stammer thanks.
"Don't!" said Diana, putting out a hand. "If I owe it you--and I take it on your word--the money shall be paid--that's all. Only--only, I wish you had not written to me like that; and I ask that--that--you will never, please, speak to me about it again!"
She had risen, and was standing, very tall and rigid, her hands pressing against each other.
Fanny's face clouded.
"Very well," she said, as she rose from her seat, "I'm sure I don't want to talk about it. I didn't like the job a bit--nor did mother. But if you are poor--and somebody owes you something--you can't help trying to get it--that's all!"
Diana said nothing. She went to the writing-table and began to arrange some letters. Fanny looked at her.
"I say, Diana!--perhaps you won't want me to stay here after--You seem to have taken against me."
Diana turned.
"No," she said, faintly. Then, with a little sob: "I thought of nothing but your coming."
Fanny flushed.
"Well, of course you've been very kind to me--and all that sort of thing. I wasn't saying you hadn't been. Except--Well, no, there's one thing Idothink you've been rather nasty about!"
The girl threw back her head defiantly.
Diana's pale face questioned her.
"I was talking to your maid yesterday," said Fanny, slowly, "and she says you're going to stay at some smart place next week, and you've been getting a new dress for it. And you've never said awordto me about it--let alone ask me to go with you!"
Diana looked at her amazed.
"You mean--I'm going to Tallyn!"
"That's it," said Fanny, reproachfully. "And you know I don't get a lot of fun at home--and I might as well be seeing people--and going about with you--though I do have to play second fiddle. You're rich, of course--everybody's nice to you--"
She paused. Diana, struck dumb, could find, for the moment, nothing to say. The red named in Fanny's cheeks, and she turned away with a flounce.
"Oh, well, you'd better say it at once--you're ashamed of me! I haven't had your blessed advantages! Do you think I don't know that!"
In the girl's heightened voice and frowning brow there was a touch of fury, of goaded pride, that touched Diana with a sudden remorse. She ran toward her cousin--appealing:
"I'mverysorry, Fanny. I--I don't like to leave you--but they are my great friends--and Lady Lucy, though she's very kind, is very old-fashioned. One couldn't take the smallest liberty with her. I don't think I could ask to take you--when they are quite by themselves--and the house is only half mounted. But Mrs. Colwood and I had been thinking of several things that might amuse you--and I shall only be two nights away."
"I don't want any amusing--thanks!" said Fanny, walking to the door.
She closed it behind her. Diana clasped her hands overhead in a gesture of amazement.
"To quarrel with me about that--after--the other thing!"
No!--not Tallyn!--not Tallyn!--anywhere, anything, but that!
Was she proud?--snobbish? Her eyes filled with tears, but her will hardened. What was to be gained? Fanny would not like them, nor they her.
The luncheon-party had been arranged for Mr. Birch, Fanny's train acquaintance. Diana had asked the Roughsedges, explaining the matter, with a half-deprecating, half-humorous face, to the comfortable ear of Mrs. Roughsedge. Explanation was necessary, for this particular young man was only welcome in those houses of the neighborhood which were not socially dainty. Mrs. Roughsedge understood at once--laughed heartily--accepted with equal heartiness--and then, taking Diana's hand, she said, with a shining of her gray eye:
"My dear, if you want Henry and me to stand on our heads we will attempt it with pleasure. You are an angel!--and angels are not to be worried by solicitors."
The first part of which remark referred to a certain morning after Hugh's announcement of his appointment to the Nigerian expedition, when Diana had shown the old people a sweet and daughter-like sympathy, which had entirely won whatever portion of their hearts remained still to be captured.
Hugh, meanwhile, was not yet gone, though he was within a fortnight of departure. He was coming to luncheon, with his parents, in order to support Diana. The family had seen Miss Merton some two or three times, and were all strongly of opinion that Diana very much wanted supporting. "Why should one be civil to one's cousin?" Dr. Roughsedge inquired of his wife. "If they are nice, let them stand on their own merits. If not, they are disagreeable people who know a deal too much about you. Miss Diana should have consulted me!"
The Roughsedges arrived early, and found Diana alone in the drawing-room. Again Captain Roughsedge thought her pale, and was even sure that she had lost flesh. This time it was hardly possible to put these symptoms down to Marsham's account. He chafed under the thought that he should be no longer there in case a league, offensive and defensive, had in the end to be made with Mrs. Colwood for the handling of cousins. It was quite clear that Miss Fanny was a vulgar little minx, and that Beechcote would have no peace till it was rid of her. Meanwhile, the indefinable change which had come over his mother's face, during the preceding week, had escaped even the quick eyes of an affectionate son. Alas! for mothers--when Lalage appears!
Mr. Birch arrived to the minute, and when he was engaged in affable conversation with Diana, Fanny, last of the party--the door being ceremoniously thrown open by the butler--entered, with an air. Mr. Birch sprang effusively to his feet, and there was a noisy greeting between him and his travelling companion. The young man was slim, and effeminately good-looking. His frock-coat and gray trousers were new and immaculate; his small feet were encased in shining patent-leather boots, and his blue eyes gave the impression of having been carefully matched with his tie. He was evidently delighted to find himself at Beechcote, and it might have been divined that there was a spice of malice in his pleasure. The Vavasours had always snubbed him; Miss Mallory herself had not been over-polite to him on one or two occasions; but her cousin was a "stunner," and, secure in Fanny's exuberant favor, he made himself quite at home. Placed on Diana's left at table, he gave her much voluble information about her neighbors, mostly ill-natured; he spoke familiarly of "that clever chap Marsham," as of a politician who owed his election for the division entirely to the good offices of Mr. Fred Birch's firm, and described Lady Lucy as "an old dear," though very "frowsty" in her ideas. He was strongly of opinion that Marsham should find an heiress as soon as possible, for there was no saying how "long the old lady would see him out of his money," and everybody knew that at present "she kept him beastly short." "As for me," the speaker wound up, with an engaging and pensivenaïveté, "I've talked to him till I'm tired."
At last he was headed away from Tallyn and its owners, only to fall into a rapturous debate with Fanny over a racing bet which seemed to have been offered and taken on the journey which first made them acquainted. Fanny had lost, but the young man gallantly excused her.
"No--no, couldn't think of it! Not till next time. Then--my word!--I'll come down upon you--won't I? Teach you to know your way about--eh?"
Loud laughter from Fanny, who professed to know her way about already. They exchanged "tips"--until at last Mr. Birch, lost in admiration of his companion, pronounced her a "ripper"--he had never yet met a lady so well up--"why, you know as much as a man!"
Dr. Roughsedge meanwhile observed the type. The father, an old-fashioned steady-going solicitor, had sent the son to expensive schools, and allowed him two years at Oxford, until the College had politely requested the youth's withdrawal. The business was long established, and had been sound. This young man had now been a partner in it for two years, and the same period had seen the rise to eminence of another and hitherto obscure firm in the county town. Mr. Fred Birch spoke contemptuously of the rival firm as "smugs"; but the district was beginning to intrust its wills and mortgages to the "smugs" with a sad and increasing alacrity.
There were, indeed, some secret discomforts in the young man's soul; and while he sported with Fanny he did not forget business. The tenant of Beechcote was,ipso facto, of some social importance, and Diana was reported to be rich; the Roughsedges also, though negligible financially, were not without influence in high places; and the doctor was governor of an important grammar-school recently revived and reorganized, wherewith the Birches would have been glad to be officially connected. He therefore made himself agreeable.
"You read, sir, a great deal?" he said to the doctor, with a professional change of voice.
The doctor, who, like most great men, was a trifle greedy, was silently enjoying a dish of oysters delicately rolled in bacon. He looked up at his questioner.
"A great deal, Mr. Birch."
"Everything, in fact?"
"Everything--except, of course, what is indispensable."
Mr. Birch looked puzzled.
"I heard of you from the Duchess, doctor. She says you are one of the most learned men in England."
"The Duchess?" The doctor screwed up his eyes and looked round the table.
Mr. Birch, with complacency, named the wife of a neighboring potentate who owned half the county.
"Don't know her," said the doctor--"don't know her; and--excuse the barbarity--don't wish to know her."
"Oh, but so charming!" cried Mr. Birch--"and so kind!"
The doctor shook his head, and declared that great ladies were not to his taste. "Poodles, sir, poodles! 'fed on cream and muffins!'--there is no trusting them."
"Poodles!" said Fanny, in astonishment. "Why are duchesses like poodles?"
The doctor bowed to her.
"I give it up, Miss Merton. Ask Sydney Smith."
Fanny was mystified, and the sulky look appeared.
"Well, I know I should like to be a duchess. Why shouldn't one want to be a duchess?"
"Why not indeed?" said the doctor, helping himself to another oyster. "That's why they exist."
"I suppose you're teasing," said Fanny, rather crossly.
"I am quite incapable of it," protested the doctor. "Shall we not all agree that duchesses exist for the envy and jealousy of mankind?"
"Womankind?" put in Diana. The doctor smiled at her, and finished his oyster. Brave child! Had that odious young woman been behaving in character that morning? He would like to have the dealing with her! As for Diana, her face reminded him of Cowper's rose "just washed by a shower"--delicately fresh--yet eloquent of some past storm.--Good Heavens! Where was that fellow Marsham? Philandering with politics?--when there was this flower for the gathering!
Luncheon was half-way through when a rattling sound of horses' hoofs outside drew the attention of the table.
"Somebody else coming to lunch," said Mr. Birch. "Sorry for 'em, Miss Mallory. We haven't left 'em much. You've done us so uncommon well."
Diana herself looked in some alarm round the table.
"Plenty, my dear lady, plenty!" said the doctor, on her other hand. "Cold beef, and bread and cheese--what does any mortal want more? Don't disturb yourself."
Diana wondered who the visitors might be. The butler entered.
"Sir James Chide, ma'am, and Miss Drake. They have ridden over from Overton Park, and didn't think it was so far. They told me to say they didn't wish to disturb you at luncheon, and might they have a cup of coffee?"
Diana excused herself, and hurried out. Mr. Birch explained at length to Mrs. Colwood and Fanny that Overton Park belonged to the Judge, Sir William Felton; that Sir James Chide was often there; and no doubt Miss Drake had been invited for the ball of the night before; awfully smart affair!--the coming-out ball of the youngest daughter.
"Who is Miss Drake?" asked Fanny, thinking enviously of the ball, to which she had not been invited. Mr. Birch turned to her with confidential jocosity.
"Lady Lucy Marsham's cousin; and it is generally supposed that she might by now have been something else but for--"
He nodded toward the chair at the head of the table which Diana had left vacant.
"Whatever do you mean?" said Fanny. The Marshams to her were, so far, mere shadows. They represented rich people on the horizon whom Diana selfishly wished to keep to herself.
"I'm telling tales, I declare I am!" said Mr. Birch. "Haven't you seen Mr. Oliver Marsham yet, Miss Merton?"
"No. I don't know anything about him."
"Ah!" said Mr. Birch, smiling, and peeling an apple with deliberation.
Fanny flushed.
"Is there anything up--between him and Diana?" she said in his ear.
Mr. Birch smiled again.
"I saw old Mr. Vavasour the other day--clients of ours, you understand. A close-fisted old boy, Miss Merton. They imagined they'd get a good deal out of your cousin. But not a bit of it. Oliver Marsham does all her business for her. The Vavasours don't like it, I can tell you."
"I haven't seen either him or Lady Lucy--is that her name?--since I came."
"Let me see. You came about a fortnight ago--just when Parliament reassembled. Mr. Marsham is our member. He and Lady Lucy went up to town the day before Parliament met."
"And what about Miss Drake?"
"Ah!--poor Miss Drake!" Mr. Birch raised a humorous eyebrow. "Those little things will happen, won't they? It was just at Christmas, I understand, that your cousin paid her first visit to Tallyn. A man who was shooting there told me all about it."
"And Miss Drake was there too?"
Mr. Birch nodded.
"And Diana cut her out?" said Fanny, bending toward him eagerly.
Mr. Birch smiled again. Voices were heard in the hall, but before the new guests entered, the young man put up a finger to his lips:
"Don't you quote me, please, Miss Merton. But, I can tell you, your cousin's very high up in the running just now. And Oliver Marsham will have twenty thousand a year some day if he has a penny. Miss Mallory hasn't told you anything--hasn't she? Ha--ha! Still waters, you know--still waters!"
A few minutes later Sir James Chide was seated between Diana and Fanny Merton, Mr. Birch having obligingly vacated his seat and passed to the other side of the table, where his attempts at conversation were coldly received by Miss Drake. That young lady dazzled the eyes of Fanny, who sat opposite to her. The closely fitting habit and black riding-hat gave to her fine figure and silky wealth of hair the maximum of effect. Fanny perfectly understood that only money and fashion could attain to Miss Drake's costly simplicity. She envied her from the bottom of her heart; she would have given worlds to see the dress in which she had figured at the ball. Miss Drake, no doubt, went to two or three balls a week, and could spend anything she liked upon her clothes.
Yet Diana had cut her out--Diana was to carry off the prize! Twenty thousand a year! Fanny's mind was in a ferment--the mind of a raw and envious provincial, trained to small ambitions and hungry desires. Half an hour before, she had been writing a letter home, in a whirl of delight and self-glorification. The money Diana had promised would set the whole family on its legs, and Fanny had stipulated that after the debts were paid she was to have a clear, cool hundred for her own pocket, and no nonsense about it. It was she who had done it all, and if it hadn't been for her, they might all have gone to the workhouse. But now her success was to her as dross. The thought of Diana's future wealth and glory produced in her a feeling which was an acute physical distress. So Diana was to be married!--and to the greatpartiof the neighborhood! Fanny already saw her in the bridal white, surrounded by glittering bridesmaids; and a churchful of titled people, bowing before her as she passed in state, like poppies under a breeze.
And Diana had never said a word to her about it--to her own cousin! Nasty, close, mean ways! Fanny was not good enough for Tallyn--oh no!Shewas asked to Beechcote when there was nothing going on--or next to nothing--and one might yawn one's self to sleep with dulness from morning till night. But as soon as she was safely packed off, then there would be fine times, no doubt; the engagement would be announced; the presents would begin to come in; the bridesmaids would be chosen. But she would get nothing out of it--not she; she would not be asked to be bridesmaid. She was not genteel enough for Diana.
Diana--Diana!--the daughter--
Fanny's whole nature gathered itself as though for a spring upon some prey, at once tempting and exasperating. In one short fortnight the inbred and fated antagonism between the two natures had developed itself--on Fanny's side--to the point of hatred. In the depths of her being she knew that Diana had yearned to love her, and had not been able. That failure was not her crime, but Diana's.
Fanny looked haughtily round the table. How many of them knew what she knew? Suddenly a name recurred to her!--the name announced by the butler and repeated by Mr. Birch. At the moment she had been thinking of other things; it had roused no sleeping associations. But now the obscure under-self sent it echoing through the brain. Fanny caught her breath. The sudden excitement made her head swim.--She turned and looked at the white-haired elderly man sitting between her and Diana.
Sir James Chide!
Memories of the common gossip in her home, of the talk of the people on the steamer, of pages in that volume ofFamous Trialsshe had studied on the voyage with such a close and unsavory curiosity danced through the girl's consciousness. Well,heknew! No good pretending there. And he came to see Diana--and still Diana knew nothing! Mrs. Colwood must simply be telling lies--silly lies! Fanny glanced at her with contempt.
Yet so bewildered was she that when Sir James addressed her, she stared at him in what seemed a fit of shyness. And when she began to talk it was at random, for her mind was in a tumult. But Sir James soon divined her. Vulgarity, conceit, ill-breeding--the great lawyer detected them in five minutes' conversation. Nor were they unexpected; for he was well acquainted with Miss Fanny's origins. Yet the perception of them made the situation still more painfully interesting to him, and no less mysterious than before. For he saw no substantial change in it; and he was, in truth, no less perplexed than Fanny. If certain things had happened in consequence of Miss Merton's advent, neither he nor any other guest would be sitting at Diana Mallory's table that day; of that he was morally certain. Therefore, they had not happened.
He returned with a redoubled tenderness of feeling to his conversation with Diana. He had come to Overton for the Sunday, at great professional inconvenience, for nothing in the world but that he must pay this visit to Beechcote; and he had approached the house with dread--dread lest he should find a face stricken with the truth. That dread was momentarily lifted, for in those beautiful dark eyes of Diana innocence and ignorance were still written; but none the less he trembled for her; he saw her as he had seen her at Tallyn, a creature doomed, and consecrate to pain. Why, in the name of justice and pity, had her father done this thing? So it is that a man's love, for lack of a little simple courage and common-sense, turns to cruelty.
Poor, poor child!--At first sight he, like the Roughsedges, had thought her pale and depressed. Then he had given his message. "Marsham has arrived!--turned up at Overton a couple of hours ago--and told us to say he would follow us here after luncheon. He wired to Lady Felton this morning to ask if she would take him in for the Sunday. Some big political meeting he had for to-night is off. Lady Lucy stays in town--and Tallyn is shut up. But Lady Felton was, of course, delighted to get him. He arrived about noon. Civility to his hostess kept him to luncheon--then he pursues us!"
Since then!--no lack of sparkle in the eyes or color in the cheek! Yet even so, to Sir James's keen sense, there was an increase, a sharpening, in Diana's personality, of the wistful, appealing note, which had been always touching, always perceptible, even through the radiant days of her Tallyn visit.
Ah, well!--like Dr. Roughsedge, only with a far deeper urgency, he, too, for want of any better plan, invoked the coming lover. In God's name, let Marsham take the thing into his own hands!--stand on his own feet!--dissipate a nightmare which ought never to have arisen--and gather the girl to his heart.
Meanwhile Fanny's attention--and the surging anger of her thoughts--were more and more directed upon the girl with the fair hair opposite. A natural bond of sympathy seemed somehow to have arisen between her and this Miss Drake--Diana's victim. Alicia Drake, looking up, was astonished, time after time, to find herself stared at by the common-looking young woman across the table, who was, she understood, Miss Mallory's cousin. What dress, and what manners! One did not often meet that kind of person in society. She wished Oliver joy of his future relations.
In the old panelled drawing-room the coffee was circulating. Sir James was making friends with Mrs. Colwood, whose gentle looks and widow's dress appealed to him. Fanny, Miss Drake, and Mr. Birch made a group by the fireplace; Mr. Birch was posing as an authority on the drama; Fanny, her dark eyes fixed upon Alicia, was not paying much attention; and Alicia, with ill-concealed impatience, was yawning behind her glove. Hugh Roughsedge was examining the Donatello photograph.
"Do you like it?" said Diana, standing beside him. She was conscious of having rather neglected him at lunch, and there was a dancing something in her own heart which impelled her to kindness and compunction. Was not the good, inarticulate youth, too, going out into the wilds, his life in his hands, in the typical English way? The soft look in her eyes which expressed this mingled feeling did not mislead the recipient. He had overheard Sir James Glide's message; he understood her.
Presently, Mrs. Roughsedge, seeing that it was a sunny day and the garden looked tempting, asked to be allowed to inspect a new greenhouse that Diana was putting up. The door leading out of the drawing-room to the moat and the formal garden was thrown open; cloaks and hats were brought, and the guests streamed out.
"You are not coming?" said Hugh Roughsedge to Diana.
At this question he saw a delicate flush, beyond her control, creep over her cheek and throat.
"I--I am expecting Mr. Marsham," she said. "Perhaps I ought to stay."
Sir James Chide looked at his watch.
"He should be here any minute. We will overtake you, Captain Roughsedge."
Hugh went off beside Mrs. Colwood. Well, well, it was all plain enough! It was only a fortnight since the Marshams had gone up to town for the Parliamentary season. And here he was, again upon the scene. Impossible, evidently, to separate them longer. Let them only get engaged, and be done with it! He stalked on beside Mrs. Colwood, tongue-tied and miserable.
Meanwhile, Sir James lingered with Diana. "A charming old place!" he said, looking about him. "But Marsham tells me the Vavasours have been odious."
"We have got the better of them! Mr. Marsham helped me."
"He has an excellent head, has Oliver. This year he will have special need of it. It will be a critical time for him."
Diana gave a vague assent. She had, in truth, two recent letters from Marsham in her pocket at that moment, giving a brilliant and minute account of the Parliamentary situation. But she hid the fact, warm and close, like a brooding bird; only drawing on her companion to talk politics, that she might hear Marsham's name sometimes, and realize the situation Marsham had described to her, from another point of view.--And all the time her ear listened for the sound of hoofs, and for the front door bell.
At last! The peal echoed through the old house. Sir James rose, and, instinctively, Diana rose too. Was there a smile--humorous and tender--in the lawyer's blue eyes?
"I'll go and finish my cigarette out-of-doors. Such a tempting afternoon!"
And out he hurried, before Diana could stop him. She remained standing, with soft hurrying breath, looking out into the garden. On a lower terrace she saw Fanny and Alicia Drake walking together, and could not help a little laugh of amusement that seemed to come out of a heart of content. Then the door opened, and Marsham was there.
Marsham's first feeling, as he advanced into the room, and, looking round him, saw that Diana was alone, was one of acute physical pleasure. The old room with its mingling of color, at once dim and rich; the sunlit garden through the casement windows; the scent of the logs burning on the hearth, and of the hyacinths and narcissus with which the warm air was perfumed; the signs everywhere of a woman's life and charm; all these first impressions leaped upon him, aiding the remembered spell which had recalled him--hot-foot and eager--from London, to this place, on the very first opportunity.
And if her surroundings were poetic, how much more so was the girl-figure itself!--the slender form, the dark head, and that shrinking joy which spoke in her gesture, in the movement she made toward him across the room. She checked it at once, but not before a certain wildness in it had let loose upon him a rush of delight.
"Sir James explained?" he said, as he took her hand.
"Yes. I had no notion you would be here--this week-end."
"Nor had I--till last night. Then an appointment broken down--and--me voici!"
"You stay over to-morrow?"
"Of course! But it is absurd that the Feltons should be five miles away!"
She stammered:
"It is a charming ride."
"But too long!--One does not want to lose time."
She was now sitting; and he beside her. Mechanically she had taken up some embroidery--to shield her eyes. He examined the reds and blues of the pattern, the white fingers, the bending cheek. Suddenly, like Sir James Chide or Hugh Roughsedge, he was struck with a sense of change. The Dian look which matched her name, the proud gayety and frankness of it, were somehow muffled and softened. And altogether her aspect was a little frail and weary. The perception brought with it an appeal to the protective strength of the man. What were her cares? Trifling, womanish things! He would make her confess them; and then conjure them away!
"You have your cousin with you?"
"Yes."
"She will make you a long visit?"
"Another week or two, I think."
"You are a believer in family traditions?--But of course you are!"
"Why 'of course'?" Her color had sparkled again, but the laugh was not spontaneous.
"I see that you are in love with even your furthest kinsmen--you must be--being an Imperialist! Now I am frankly bored by my kinsmen--near and far."
"All the same--you ask their help!"
"Oh yes, in war; pure self-interest on both sides."
"You have been preaching this in the House of Commons?"
The teasing had answered. No more veiling of the eyes!
"No--I have made no speeches. Next week, in the Vote of Censure debate, I shall get my chance."
"To talk Little Englandism? Alack!"
The tone was soft--it ended in a sigh.
"Does it really trouble you?"
She was looking down at her work. Her fingers drew the silk out and in--a little at random. She shook her head slightly, without reply.
"I believe it does," he said, gently, still smiling. "Well, when I make my speech, I shall remember that."
She looked up suddenly. Their eyes met full. On her just parted lips the words she had meant to say remained unspoken. Then a murmur of voices from the garden reached them, as though some one approached. Marsham rose.
"Shall we go into the garden? I ought to speak to Robins. How is he getting on?"
Robins was the new head gardener, appointed on Marsham's recommendation.
"Excellently." Diana had also risen. "I will get my hat."
He opened the door for her. Hang those people outside! But for them she would have been already in his arms.
Left to himself, he walked to and fro, restless and smiling. No more self-repression--no more politic delay! The great moment of life--grasped--captured at last! He in his turn understood the Faust-cry--"Linger awhile!--thou art so fair!" Only let him pierce to the heart of it--realize it, covetously, to the full! All the ordinary worldly motives were placated and at rest; due sacrifice had been done to them; they teased no more. Upgathered and rolled away, like storm-winds from the sea, they had left a shining and a festal wave for love to venture on. Let him only yield himself--feel the full swell of the divine force!
He moved to the window, and looked out.
Birch!--What on earth brought that creature to Beechcote. His astonishment was great, and perhaps in the depths of his mind there emerged the half-amused perception of a feminine softness and tolerance which masculine judgment must correct. She did not know how precious she was; and that it must not be made too easy for the common world to approach her. All that was picturesque and important, of course, in the lower classes; labor men, Socialists, and the like. But not vulgar half-baked fellows, who meant nothing politically, and must yet be treated like gentlemen. Ah! There were the Roughsedges--the Captain not gone yet?--Sir James and Mrs. Colwood--nice little creature, that companion--they would find some use for her in the future. And on the lower terrace, Alicia Drake, and--that girl? He laughed, amusing himself with the thought of Alicia's plight. Alicia, the arrogant, the fastidious! The odd thing was that she seemed to be absorbed in the conversation that was going on. He saw her pause at the end of the terrace, look round her, and deliberately lead the way down a long grass path, away from the rest of the party. Was the cousin good company, after all?
Diana returned. A broad black hat, and sables which had been her father's last gift to her, provided the slight change in surroundings which pleases the eye and sense of a lover. And as a man brought up in wealth, and himself potentially rich, he found it secretly agreeable that costly things became her. There should be no lack of them in the future.
They stepped out upon the terrace. At sight of them the Roughsedges approached, while Mr. Fred Birch lagged behind to inspect the sundial. After a few words' conversation, Marsham turned resolutely away.
"Miss Mallory wants to show me a new gardener."
The old doctor smiled at his wife. Hugh Roughsedge watched the departing figures. Excellently matched, he must needs admit, in aspect and in height. Was it about to happen?--or had it already happened? He braced himself, soldierlike, to the inevitable.
"You know Mr. Birch," said Diana to her companion, as they descended to the lower terrace, and passed not very far from that gentleman.
"I just know him," said Marsham, carelessly, and bestowed a nod in the direction of the solicitor.
"Had he not something to do with your election?" said Diana, astonished.
"My election?" cried Marsham. Then he laughed. "I suppose he has been drawing the long bow, as usual. Am I impertinent?--or may I ask, how you came to know him?"
He looked at her smiling. Diana colored.
"My cousin Fanny made acquaintance with him--in the train."
"I see. Here are our two cousins--coming to meet us. Will you introduce me?"
For Fanny and Miss Drake were now returning slowly along the gravel path which led to the kitchen garden. The eyes of both girls were fixed on the pair advancing toward them. Alicia was no longer impassive or haughty. Like her companion, she appeared to have been engaged in an intimate and absorbing conversation. Diana could not help looking at her in a vague surprise as she paused in front of them. But she addressed herself to her cousin.
"Fanny, I want to introduce Mr. Marsham to you."
Fanny Merton held out her hand, staring a little oddly at the gentleman presented to her. Alicia meanwhile was looking at Diana, while she spoke--with emphasis--to Marsham.
"Could you order my horse, Oliver? I think we ought to be going back."
"Would you mind asking Sir James?" Marsham pointed to the upper terrace. "I have something to see to in the garden."
Diana said hurriedly that Mrs. Colwood would send the order to the stables, and that she herself would not be long. Alicia took no notice of this remark. She still looked at Oliver.
"You'll come back with us, won't you?"
Marsham flushed. "I have only just arrived," he said, rather sharply. "Please don't wait for me.--Shall we go on?" he said, turning to Diana.
They walked on. As Diana paused at the iron gate which closed the long walk, she looked round her involuntarily, and saw that Alicia and Fanny were now standing on the lower terrace, gazing after them. It struck her as strange and rude, and she felt the slight shock she had felt several times already, both in her intercourse with Fanny and in her acquaintance with Miss Drake--as of one unceremoniously jostled or repulsed.
Marsham meanwhile was full of annoyance. That Alicia should still treat him in that domestic, possessive way--and in Diana's presence--was really intolerable. It must be stopped.
He paused on the other side of the gate.
"After all, I am not in a mood to see Robins to-day. Look!--the light is going. Will you show me the path on to the hill? You spoke to me once of a path you were fond of."
She tried to laugh.
"You take Robins for granted?"
"I am quite indifferent to his virtues--even his vices! This chance--is too precious. I have so much to say to you."
She led the way in silence. The hand which held up her dress from the mire trembled a little unseen. But her sense of the impending crisis had given her more rather than less dignity. She bore her dark head finely, with that unconscious long-descended instinct of the woman, waiting to be sued.
They found a path beyond the garden, winding up through a leafless wood. Marsham talked of indifferent things, and she answered him with spirit, feeling it all, so far, a queer piece of acting. Then they emerged on the side of the hill beside a little basin in the chalk, where a gnarled thorn or two, an overhanging beech, and a bed of withered heather, made a kind of intimate, furnished place, which appealed to the passer-by.
"Here is the sunset," said Marsham, looking round him. "Are you afraid to sit a little?"
He took a light overcoat he had been carrying over his arm and spread it on the heather. She protested that it was winter, and coats were for wearing. He took no notice, and she tamely submitted. He placed her regally, with an old thorn for support and canopy; and then he stood a moment beside her gazing westward.
They looked over undulations of the chalk, bare stubble fields and climbing woods, bathed in the pale gold of a February sunset. The light was pure and wan--the resting earth shone through it gently yet austerely; only the great woods darkly massed on the horizon gave an accent of mysterious power to a scene in which Nature otherwise showed herself the tamed and homely servant of men. Below were the trees of Beechcote, the gray walls, and the windows touched with a last festal gleam.
Suddenly Marsham dropped down beside her.
"I see it all with new eyes," he said, passionately. "I have lived in this country from my childhood; and I never saw it before! Diana!--"
He raised her hand, which only faintly resisted; he looked into her eyes. She had grown very pale--enchantingly pale. There was in her the dim sense of a great fulfilment; the fulfilment of Nature's promise to her; implicit in her woman's lot from the beginning.
"Diana!--" the low voice searched her heart--"You know--what I have come to say? I meant to have waited a little longer--I was afraid!--but I couldn't wait--it was beyond my strength. Diana!--come to me, darling!--be my wife!"
He kissed the hand he held. His eyes beseeched; and into hers, widely fixed upon him, had sprung tears--the tears of life's supremest joy. Her lip trembled.
"I'm not worthy!" she said, in a whisper--"I'm not worthy!"
"Foolish Diana!--Darling, foolish Diana!--Give me my answer!"
And now he held both hands, and his confident smile dazzled her.
"I--" Her voice broke. She tried again, still in a whisper. "I will be everything to you--that a woman can."
At that he put his arm round her, and she let him take that first kiss, in which she gave him her youth, her life--all that she had and was. Then she withdrew herself, and he saw her brow contract, and her mouth.
"I know!"--he said, tenderly--"I know! Dear, I think he would have been glad. He and I made friends from the first."
She plucked at the heather beside her, trying for composure. "He would have been so glad of a son--so glad--"
And then, by contrast with her own happiness, the piteous memory of her father overcame her; and she cried a little, hiding her eyes against Marsham's shoulder.
"There!" she said, at last, withdrawing herself, and brushing the tears away. "That's all--that's done with--except in one's heart. Did--did Lady Lucy know?"
She looked at him timidly. Her aspect had never been more lovely. Tears did not disfigure her, and as compared with his first remembrance of her, there was now a touching significance, an incomparable softness in all she said and did, which gave him a bewildering sense of treasures to come, of joys for the gathering.
Suddenly--involuntarily--there flashed through his mind the recollection of his first love-passage with Alicia--how she had stung him on, teased, and excited him. He crushed it at once, angrily.
As to Lady Lucy, he smilingly declared that she had no doubt guessed something was in the wind.
"I have been 'gey ill to live with' since we got up to town. And when the stupid meeting I had promised to speak at was put off, my mother thought I had gone off my head--from my behavior. 'What are you going to the Feltons' for?--You never care a bit about them.' So at last I brought her the map and made her look at it--'Felton Park to Brinton, 3 miles--Haylesford, 4 miles--Beechcote, 2 miles and 1/2--Beechcote Manor, half a mile--total, ten miles.'--'Oliver!'--she got so red!--'you are going to propose to Miss Mallory!' 'Well, mother!--and what have you got to say?' So then she smiled--and kissed me--and sent you messages--which I'll give you when there's time. My mother is a rather formidable person--no one who knew her would ever dream of taking her consent to anything for granted; but this time"--his laugh was merry--"I didn't even think of asking it!"
"I shall love her--dearly," murmured Diana.
"Yes, because you won't be afraid of her. Her standards are hardly made for this wicked world. But you'll hold her--you'll manage her. If you'd said 'No' to me, she would have felt cheated of a daughter."
"I'm afraid Mrs. Fotheringham won't like it," said Diana, ruefully, letting herself be gathered again into his arms.
"My sister? I don't know what to say about Isabel, dearest--unless I parody an old saying. She and I have never agreed--except in opinion. We have been on the same side--and in hot opposition--since our childhood. No--I dare say she will be thorny! Why did you fight me so well, little rebel?"
He looked down into her dark eyes, revelling in their sweetness, and in the bliss of her surrendered beauty. If this was not his first proposal, it was his first true passion--of that he was certain.
She released herself--rosy--and still thinking of Mrs. Fotheringham. "Oliver!"--she laid her hand shyly on his--"neither she nor you will want me to stifle what I think--to deny what I do really believe? I dare say a woman's politics aren't worth much"--she laughed and sighed.
"I say!--don't take that line with Isabel!"
"Well, mine probably aren't worth much--but they are mine--and papa taught them me--and I can't give them up."
"What'll you do, darling?--canvass against me?" He kissed her hand again.
"No--but Ican'tagree with you!"
"Of course you can't. Which of us,Iwonder, will shake the other? How do you know that I'm not in a blue fright for my principles?"
"You'll explain to me?--you'll not despise me?" she said, softly, bending toward him; "I'll always, always try and understand."
Who could resist an attitude so feminine, yet so loyal, at once so old and new? Marsham felt himself already attacked by the poison of Toryism, and Diana, with a happy start, envisaged horizons that her father never knew, and questions where she had everything to learn.
Hand in hand, trembling still under the thrill of the moment which had fused their lives, they fell into happy discursive talk: of the Tallyn visit--of her thoughts and his--of what Lady Lucy and Mr. Ferrier had said, or would say. In the midst of it the fall of temperature, which came with the sunset, touched them, and Marsham sprang up with the peremptoriness of a new relationship, insisting that he must take her home out of the chilly dusk. As they stood lingering in the hollow, unwilling to leave the gnarled thorns, the heather-carpet, and the glow of western light--symbols to them henceforth that they too, in their turn, amid the endless generations, had drunk the mystic cup, and shared the sacred feast--Diana perceived some movement far below, on the open space in front of Beechcote. A little peering through the twilight showed them two horses with their riders leaving the Beechcote door.
"Oh! your cousin--and Sir James!" cried Diana, in distress, "and I haven't said good-bye--"
"You will see them soon again. And I shall carry them the news to-night."
"Will you? Shall I allow it?"
Marsham laughed; he caught her hand again, slipped it possessively within his left arm, and held it there as they went slowly down the path. Diana could not think with any zest of Alicia and her reception of the news. A succession of trifles had shown her quite clearly that Alicia was not her friend; why, she did not know. She remembered many small advances on her own part.
But at the mention of Sir James Chide, her face lit up.
"He has been so kind to me!" she said, looking up into Marsham's face--"so very kind!"
Her eyes showed a touch of passion; the passion that some natures can throw into gratitude; whether for little or much. Marsham smiled.
"He fell in love with you! Yes--he is a dear old boy. One can well imagine that he has had a romance!"
"Has he?"
"It is always said that he was in love with a woman whom he defended on a charge of murder."
Diana exclaimed.
"He had met her when they were both very young, and lost his heart to her. Then she married and he lost sight of her. He accepted a brief in this murder case, ten years later, not knowing her identity, and they met for the first time when he went to see her with her solicitor in prison."
Diana breathlessly asked for the rest of the story.
"He defended her magnificently. It was a shocking case. The sentence was commuted, but she died almost immediately. They say Sir James has never got over it."
Diana pondered; her eyes dim.
"How one would like to do something for him!--to give him pleasure!"
Marsham caressed her hand.
"So you shall, darling. He shall be one of our best friends. But he mustn't make Ferrier jealous."
Diana smiled happily. She looked forward to all the new ties of kindred or friendship that Marsham was to bring her--modestly indeed, yet in the temper of one who feels herself spiritually rich and capable of giving.
"I shall love all your friends," she said, with a bright look. "I'm glad you have so many!"
"Does that mean that you've felt rather lonely sometimes? Poor darling!" he said, tenderly, "it must have been solitary often at Portofino."
"Oh no--I had papa." Then her truthfulness overcame her. "I don't mean to say I didn't often want friends of my own age--girl friends especially."
"You can't have them now!"--he said, passionately, as they paused at a wicket-gate, under a yew-tree. "I want you all--all--to myself." And in the shadow of the yew he put his arms round her again, and their hearts beat together.
But our nature moves within its own inexorable limits. In Diana, Marsham's touch, Marsham's embrace awakened that strange mingled happiness, that happiness reared and based on tragedy, which the pure and sensitive feel in the crowning moments of life. Love is tortured by its own intensity; and the thought of death strikes through the experience which means the life of the race. As her lips felt Marsham's kiss, she knew, as generations of women have known before her, that life could give her no more; and she also knew that it was transiency and parting that made it so intolerably sweet.
"Till death us do part," she said to herself. And in the intensity of her submission to the common lot she saw down the years the end of what had now begun--herself lying quiet and blessed, in the last sleep, her dead hand in Marsham's.
"Why must we go home?" he said, discontentedly, as he released her. "One turn more!--up the avenue! There is light enough yet!"
She yielded weakly; pacifying her social conscience by the half-penitent remark that Mrs. Colwood would have said good-bye to her guests, and that--she--she supposed they would soon have to know.
"Well, as I want you to marry me in six weeks," said Marsham, joyously, "I suppose they will."
"Six weeks!" She gasped. "Oh, how unreasonable!"
"Dearest!--A fortnight would do for frocks. And whom have we to consult but ourselves? I know you have no near relations. As for cousins, it doesn't take long to write them a few notes, and ask them to the wedding."
Diana sighed.
"My only cousins are the Mertons. They are all in Barbadoes but Fanny."
Her tone changed a little. In her thoughts, she added, hurriedly: "I sha'n't have any bridesmaids!"
Marsham, discreetly, made no reply. Personally, he hoped that Miss Merton's engagements might take her safely back to Barbadoes before the wedding-day. But if not, he and his would no doubt know how to deal with her--civilly and firmly--as people must learn to deal with their distasteful relations.
Meanwhile on Diana's mind there had descended a sudden cloud of thought, dimming the ecstasy of her joy. The February day was dying in a yellowish dusk, full of beauty. They were walking along a narrow avenue of tall limes which skirted the Beechcote lands, and took them past the house. Above their heads the trees met in a brown-and-purple tracery of boughs, and on their right, through the branches, they saw a pale full moon, throning it in a silver sky. The mild air, the movements of the birds, the scents from the earth and bushes spoke of spring; and suddenly Diana perceived the gate leading to the wood where that very morning the subtle message of the changing year had come upon her, rending and probing. A longing to tell Marsham all her vague troubles rose in her, held back by a natural shrinking. But the longing prevailed, quickened by the loyal sense that she must quickly tell him all she knew about herself and her history, since there was nobody else to tell him.
"Oliver!"--she began, hurriedly--"I ought to tell you--I don't think you know. My name wasn't Mallory to begin with--my father took that name."
Marsham gave a little start.
"Dear--how surprising!--and how interesting! Tell me all you can--from the year One."
He smiled upon her, with a sparkling look that asked for all her history. But secretly he had been conscious of a shock. Lately he had made a few inquiries about the Welsh Mallorys. And the answers had been agreeable; though the old central stock of the name, to which he presumed Diana belonged, was said to be extinct. No doubt--so he had reflected--it had come to an end in her father.
"Mallory was the name of my father's mother. He took it for various reasons--I never quite understood--and I know a good deal of property came to him. But his original name--my name--was Sparling."
"Sparling!" A pause. "And have you any Sparling relations."
"No. They all died out--I think--but I know so little!--when I was small. However, I have a box of Sparling papers which I have never examined. Perhaps--some day--we might look at them together."
Her voice shook a little.
"You have never looked at them?"
"Never."
"But why, dearest?"
"It always seemed to make papa so unhappy--anything to do with his old name. Oliver!"--she turned upon him suddenly, and for the first time she clung to him, hiding her face against his shoulder--"Oliver!--I don't know what made him unhappy--I don't know why he changed his name. Sometimes I think--there may have been some terrible thing between him--and my mother."
He put his arm round her, close and tenderly.
"What makes you think that?" Then he whispered to her--"Tell your lover--your husband--tell him everything."
She shrank in delicious tremor from the great word, and it was a few moments before she could collect her thoughts. Then she said--still resting against him in the dark--and in a low rapid voice, as though she followed the visions of an inner sense:
"She died when I was only four. I just remember--it is almost my first recollection of anything--seeing her carried up-stairs--" She broke off. "And oh! it's so strange!--"
"Strange? She was ill?"
"Yes, but--what I seem to remember never explains itself--and I did not dare to ask papa. She hadn't been with us--for a long time. Papa and I had been alone. Then one day I saw them carrying her up-stairs--my father and two nurses--I ran out before my nurse could catch me--and saw her--she was in her hat and cloak. I didn't know her, and when she called me, I ran away. Then afterward they took me in to see her in bed--two or three times--and I remember once"--Diana began to sob herself--"seeing her cry. She lay sobbing--and my father beside her; he held her hand--and I saw him hide his eyes upon it. They never noticed me; I don't know that they saw me. Then they told me she was dead--I saw her lying on the bed--and my nurse gave me some flowers to put beside her--some violets. They were the only flowers. I can see her still, lying there--with her hands closed over them."
She released herself from Marsham, and, with her hand in his, she drew him slowly along the path, while she went on speaking, with an effort indeed, yet with a marvellous sense of deliverance--after the silence of years. She described the entire seclusion of their life at Portofino.
"Papa never spoke to me of mamma, and I never remember a picture of her. After his death I saw a closed locket on his breast for the first time. I would not have opened it for the world--I just kissed it--" Her voice broke again; but after a moment she quietly resumed. "He changed his name--I think--when I was about nine years old. I remember that somehow it seemed to give him comfort--he was more cheerful with me afterward--"
"And you have no idea what led him to go abroad?"
She shook her head. Marsham's changed and rapid tone had betrayed some agitation in the mind behind; but Diana did not notice it. In her story she had come to what, in truth, had been the determining and formative influence on her own life--her father's melancholy, and the mystery in which it had been enwrapped; and even the perceptions of love were for the moment blinded as the old tyrannous grief overshadowed her.
"His life"--she said, slowly--"seemed for years--one long struggle to bear--what was really--unbearable. Then when I was about nineteen there was a change. He no longer shunned people quite in the same way, and he took me to Egypt and India. We came across old friends of his whom I, of course, had never seen before; and I used to wonder at the way in which they treated him--with a kind of reverence--as though they would not have touched him roughly for the world. Then directly after we got home to the Riviera his illness began--"
She dwelt on the long days of dumbness, and her constant sense that he wished--in vain--to communicate something to her.
"He wanted something--and I could not give it him--could not even tell what it was. It was misery! One day he managed to write: 'If you are in trouble, go to Riley & Bonner--ask them.' They were his solicitors, whom he had depended on from his boyhood. But since his death I have never wanted anything from them but a little help in business. They have been very good; but--I could not go and question them. If there was anything to know--papa had not been able to tell me--I did not want anybody else--to--"
Her voice dropped. Only half an hour since the flowering of life! What a change in both! She was pacing along slowly, her head thrown back; the oval of her face white among her furs, under the ghostly touch of the moonlight; a suggestion of something austere--finely remote--in her attitude and movement. His eyes were on the ground, his shoulders bent; she could not see his face.
"We must try and unravel it--together," he said, at last, with an effort. "Can you tell me your mother's name?"
"It was an old Staffordshire family. But she and papa met in America, and they married there. Her father died not long afterward, I think. And I have never heard of any relations but the one sister, Mrs. Merton. Her name was Wentworth. Oh!" It was an involuntary cry of physical pain.
"Diana!--Did I hurt your hand? my darling!"
The sudden tightness of his grip had crushed her fingers. She smiled at him, as he kissed them, in hasty remorse.
"And her Christian name?" he asked, in a low voice.
"Juliet."
There was a pause. They had turned back, and were walking toward the house. The air had grown much colder; frosty stars were twinkling, and a chilly wind was blowing light clouds across the moon. The two figures moved slowly in and out of the bands of light and shadow which crossed the avenue.
Diana stopped suddenly.
"If there were something terrible to know!"--she said, trembling--"something which would make you ashamed of me!--"
Her tall slenderness bent toward him--she held out her hands piteously. Marsham's manhood asserted itself. He encircled her again with his strong arm, and she hid her face against him. The contact of her soft body, her fresh cheek, intoxicated him afresh. In the strength of his desire for her, it was as though he were fighting off black vultures of the night, forces of horror that threatened them both. He would not believe what yet he already knew to be true. The thought of his mother clamored at the door of his mind, and he would not open to it. In a reckless defiance of what had overtaken him, he poured out tender and passionate speech which gradually stilled the girl's tumult of memory and foreboding, and brought back the heaven of their first moment on the hill-side. Her own reserve broke down, and from her murmured words, her sweetness, her infinite gratitude, Marsham might divine still more fully the richness of that harvest which such a nature promised to a lover.
"I won't tell any one--but Muriel--till you have seen Lady Lucy," said Diana, as they approached the house, and found Marsham's horse waiting at the door.
He acquiesced, and it was arranged that he should go up to town the following day, Sunday--see Lady Lucy--and return on the Monday.
Then he rode away, waving his hand through the darkness.
Marsham's horse carried him swiftly through country roads, where the moon made magic, and peace reigned. But the mind of the rider groped in confusion and despair, seeing no way out.
Only one definite purpose gathered strength--to throw himself on the counsel of Sir James Chide. Chide had known--from the beginning!