Late on Monday afternoon Lady Niton paid a call in Eaton Square. She and Lady Lucy were very old friends, and rarely passed a week when they were both in town without seeing each other.
Mr. Ferrier lunched with her on Monday, and casually remarked that Lady Lucy was not as well as usual. Lady Niton replied that she would look her up that afternoon; and she added: "And what about that procrastinating fellow Oliver? Is he engaged yet?"
"Not to my knowledge," said Mr. Ferrier, after a pause.
"Then he ought to be! What on earth is he shilly-shallying for? In my days young men had proper blood in their veins."
Ferrier did not pursue the subject, and Lady Niton at once jumped to the conclusion that something had happened. By five o'clock she was in Eaton Square.
Only Alicia Drake was in the drawing-room when she was announced.
"I hear Lucy's seedy," said the old lady, abruptly, after vouchsafing a couple of fingers to Miss Drake. "I suppose she's been starving herself, as usual?"
Oliver's mother enjoyed an appetite as fastidious as her judgments on men and morals, and Lady Niton had a running quarrel with her on the subject.
Alicia replied that it had been, indeed, unusually difficult of late to persuade Lady Lucy to eat.
"The less you eat the less you may eat," said Lady Niton, with vigor. "The stomach contracts unless you give it something to do. That's what's the matter with Lucy, my dear--though, of course, I never dare name the organ. But I suppose she's been worrying herself about something?"
"I am afraid she has."
"Is Oliver engaged?" asked Lady Niton, suddenly, observing the young lady.
Alicia replied demurely that that question had perhaps better be addressed to Lady Lucy.
"What's the matter? Can't the young people make up their minds? Do they want Lucy to make them up for them?"
Alicia looked at her companion a little under her brows, and did not reply. Lady Niton was so piqued by the girl's expression that she immediately threw herself on the mystery she divined--tearing and scratching at it, like a dog in a rabbit-hole. And very soon she had dragged it to the light. Miss Drake merely remarked that it was very sad, but it appeared that Miss Mallory was not really a Mallory at all, but the daughter of a certain Mrs. Sparling--Juliet Sparling, who--"
"Juliet Sparling!" cried Lady Niton, her queer small eyes starting in their sockets. "My dear, you must be mad!"
Alicia smiled, though gravely. She was afraid Lady Niton would find that what she said was true.
A cross-examination followed, after which Lady Niton sat speechless for a while. She took a fan out of her large reticule and fanned herself, a proceeding by which she often protested against the temperature at which Lady Lucy kept her drawing-room. She then asked for a window to be opened, and when she had been sufficiently oxygenated she delivered herself:
"Well, and why not? We really didn't have the picking and choosing of our mothers or fathers, though Lucy always behaves as though we had--to the fourth generation. Besides, I always took the side of that poor creature, and Lucy believed the worst--as usual. Well, and so she's going to make Oliver back out of it?"
At this point the door opened, and Lady Lucy glided in, clad in a frail majesty which would have overawed any one but Elizabeth Niton. Alicia discreetly disappeared, and Lady Niton, after an inquiry as to her friend's health--delivered, as it were, at the point of the bayonet, and followed by a flying remark on the absurdity of treating your body as if it were only given you to be harried--plunged headlong into the great topic. What an amazing business! Now at last one would see what Oliver was made of!
Lady Lucy summoned all her dignity, expounded her view, and entirely declined to be laughed or rated out of it. For Elizabeth Niton, her wig much awry, her old eyes and cheeks blazing, took up the cause of Diana with alternate sarcasm and eloquence. As for the social disrepute--stuff! All that was wanting to such a beautiful creature as Diana Mallory was a story and a scandal. Positively she would be the rage, and Oliver's fortune was made.
Lady Lucy sat in pale endurance, throwing in an occasional protest, not budging by one inch--and no doubt reminding herself from time to time, in the intervals of her old friend's attacks, of the letter she had just despatched to Beechcote--until, at last, Lady Niton, having worked herself up into a fine frenzy to no purpose at all, thought it was time to depart.
"Well, my dear," she said, leaning on her stick, the queerest rag-bag of a figure--crooked wig, rusty black dress, and an unspeakable bonnet--"you are a saint, of course, and I am a quarrelsome old sinner; I like society, and you, I believe, regard it as a grove of barren fig-trees. I don't care a rap for my neighbor if he doesn't amuse me, and you live in a puddle of good works. But, upon my word, I wouldn't be you when it comes to the sheep and the goats business! Here is a young girl, sweet and good and beautifully brought up--money and manners and everything handsome about her--she is in love with Oliver, and he with her--and just because you happen to find out that she is the daughter of a poor creature who made a tragic mess of her life, and suffered for it infinitely more than you and I are ever likely to suffer for our intolerably respectable peccadilloes--you will break her heart and his--if he's the good-luck to have one!--and there you sit, looking like a suffering angel, and expecting all your old friends, I suppose, to pity and admire you. Well, I won't, Lucy!--I won't! That's flat. There's my hand. Good-bye!"
Lady Lucy took it patiently, though from no other person in the world save Elizabeth Niton would she have so taken it.
"I thought, Elizabeth, you would have tried to understand me."
Elizabeth Niton shook her head.
"There's only your Maker could do that, Lucy. And He must be pretty puzzled to account for you sometimes. Good-bye. I thought Alicia looked uncommonly cheerful!"
This last remark was delivered as a parting shot as Lady Niton hobbled to the door. She could not, however, resist pausing to see its effect. Lady Lucy turned indignantly.
"I don't know what you mean by that remark. Alicia has behaved with great kindness and tact!"
"I dare say! We're all darlings when we get our way. What does Ferrier say?"
Lady Lucy hesitated.
"If my old friends cannot see it as I do--if they blame me--I am very sorry. But it is my responsibility."
"A precious good thing, my dear, for everybody else! But as far as I can make out, theyareengaged?"
"Nothing is settled," said Lady Lucy, hastily; "and I need not say, Elizabeth, that if you have any affection for us--or any consideration for Miss Mallory--you will not breathe a word of this most sad business to anybody."
"Well, for Oliver's sake, if he doesn't intend to behave like a man, I do certainly hope it may be kept dark!" cried Lady Niton. "For if he does desert her, under such circumstances, I suppose you know that a great many people will be inclined to cut him? I shall hold my tongue. But, of course, it will come out."
With which final shaft she departed, leaving Lady Lucy a little uneasy. She mentioned Elizabeth Niton's "foolish remark" to Mrs. Fotheringham in the course of the evening. Isabel Fotheringham laughed it to scorn.
"You may be quite sure there will be plenty of ill-natured talk either way, whether Oliver gives her up or doesn't. The real thing to bear in mind is that if Oliver yields to your wishes, mamma--as you certainly deserve that he should, after all you have done for him--he will be delivered from an ignorant and reactionary wife who might have spoiled his career. I like to call a spade a spade. Oliver belongs to hisparty, and his party have a right to count upon him. He has no right to jeopardize either his opinions or his money;wehave a claim on both."
Lady Lucy gave an unconscious sigh. She was glad of any arguments, from anybody, that offered her support. But it did occur to her that if Diana Mallory had not shown a weakness for the soldiers of her country, and if her heart had been right on Women's Suffrage, Isabel would have judged her case differently; so that her approval was not worth all it might have been.
Meanwhile, in the House of Commons, Isabel Fotheringham's arguments was being put in other forms.
On the Tuesday morning Marsham went down to the House, for a Committee, in a curious mood--half love, half martyrdom. The thought of Diana was very sweet; it warmed and thrilled his heart. But somehow, with every hour, he realized more fully what a magnificent thing he was doing, and how serious was his position.
In a few hurried words with Ferrier, before the meeting of the House, Marsham gave the result of his visit to Beechcote. Diana had been, of course, very much shaken, but was bearing the thing bravely. They were engaged, but nothing was to be said in public for at least six months, so as to give Lady Lucy time to reconsider.
"Though, of course, I know, as far as that is concerned, we might as well be married to-morrow and have done with it!"
"Ah!--but it is due to her--to your mother."
"I suppose it is. But the whole situation is grotesque. I must look out for some way of making money. Any suggestions thankfully received!"
Marsham spoke with an irritable flippancy. Ferrier's hazel eyes, set and almost lost in spreading cheeks, dwelt upon him thoughtfully.
"All right; I will think of some. You explained the position to Miss Mallory?"
"No," said Marsham, shortly. "How could I?"
The alternatives flew through Ferrier's mind: "Cowardice?--or delicacy?" Aloud, he said: "I am afraid she will not be long in ignorance. It will be a big fight for her, too."
Marsham shrugged his thin shoulders.
"Of course. And all for nothing. Hullo, Fleming!--do you want me?"
For the Liberal Chief Whip had paused beside them where they stood, in a corner of the smoking-room, as though wishing to speak to one or other of them, yet not liking to break up their conversation.
"Don't let me interrupt," he said to Marsham. "But can I have a word presently?"
"Now, if you like."
"Come to the Terrace," said the other, and they went out into the gray of a March afternoon. There they walked up and down for some time, engaged in an extremely confidential conversation. Signs of a general election were beginning to be strong and numerous. The Tory Government was weakening visibly, and the Liberals felt themselves in sight of an autumn, if not a summer, dissolution. But--funds!--there was the rub. The party coffers were very poorly supplied, and unless they could be largely replenished, and at once, the prospects of the election were not rosy.
Marsham had hitherto counted as one of the men on whom the party could rely. It was known that his own personal resources were not great, but he commanded his mother's ample purse. Lady Lucy had always shown herself both loyal and generous, and at her death it was, of course, assumed that he would be her heir. Lady Lucy's check, in fact, sent, through her son, to the leading party club, had been of considerable importance in the election five years before this date, in which Marsham himself had been returned; the Chief Whip wanted to assure himself that in case of need it would be repeated.
But for the first time in a conversation of this kind Marsham's reply was halting and uncertain. He would do his best, but he could not pledge himself. When the Chief Whip, disappointed and astonished, broke up their conference, Marsham walked into the House after him, in the morbid belief that a large part of his influence and prestige with his party was already gone. Let those fellows, he thought, who imagine that the popular party can be run without money, inform themselves, and not talk like asses!
In the afternoon, during an exciting debate on a subject Marsham had made to some extent his own, and in which he was expected to speak, two letters were brought to him. One was from Diana. He put it into his pocket, feeling an instinctive recoil--with his speech in sight--from the emotion it must needs express and arouse. The other was from the chairman of a Committee in Dunscombe, the chief town of his division. The town was, so far, without any proper hall for public meetings. It was proposed to build a new Liberal Club with a hall attached. The leading local supporter of the scheme wrote--with apologies--to ask Marsham what he was prepared to subscribe. It was early days to make the inquiry, but--in confidence--he might state that he was afraid local support for the scheme would mean more talk than money. Marsham pondered the letter gloomily. A week earlier he would have gone to his mother for a thousand pounds without any doubt of her reply.
It was just toward the close of the dinner-hour that Marsham caught the Speaker's eye. Perhaps the special effort that had been necessary to recall his thoughts to the point had given his nerves a stimulus. At any rate, he spoke unusually well, and sat down amid the cheers of his party, conscious that he had advanced his Parliamentary career. A good many congratulations reached him during the evening; he "drank delight of battle with his peers," for the division went well, and when he left the House at one o'clock in the morning it was in a mood of tingling exhilaration, and with a sense of heightened powers.
It was not till he reached his own room, in his mother's hushed and darkened house, that he opened Diana's letter.
The mere sight of it, as he drew it out of his pocket, jarred upon him strangely. It recalled to him the fears and discomforts, the sense of sudden misfortune and of ugly associations, which had been, for a time, obliterated in the stress and interest of politics. He opened it almost reluctantly, wondering at himself.
"MY DEAR OLIVER,--This letter from your mother reached me last night. I don't know what to say, though I have thought for many hours. I ought not to do you this great injury; that seems plain to me. Yet, then, I think of all you said to me, and I feel you must decide. You must do what is best for your future and your career; and I shall never blame you,whateveryou think right. I wish I had known, or realized, the whole truth about your mother when you were still here. It was my stupidity."I have no claim--none--against what is best for you. Just two words, Oliver!--and I think theyoughtto be 'Good-bye.'"Sir James Chide came after you left, and was most dear and kind. To-day I have my father's letter--and one from my mother--that she wrote for me--twenty years ago. I mustn't write any more. My eyes are so tired."Your grateful DIANA."
He laid down the blurred note, and turned to the enclosure. Then he read his mother's letter. And he had imagined, in his folly, that his mother's refinement would at least make use of some other weapon than the money! Why, it wasallmoney!--a blunderbuss of the crudest kind, held at Diana's head in the crudest way. This is how the saints behave--the people of delicacy--when it comes to a pinch! He saw his mother stripped of all her pretensions, her spiritual airs, and for the first time in his life--his life of unwilling subordination--he dared to despise her.
But neither contempt nor indignation helped him much. How was he to answer Diana? He paced up and down for an hour considering it, then sat down and wrote.
His letter ran as follows:
"DEAREST DIANA,--I asked you to be my wife, and I stand by my word. I did not like to say too much about my mother's state of mind when we were together yesterday, but I am afraid it is very true that she will withdraw her present allowance to me, and deprive me of the money which my father left. Most unjustly, as it has always seemed to me, she has complete control over it. Never mind. I must see what can be done. No doubt my political career will be, for a time, much affected. We must hope it will only be for a time."Ferrier and Sir James believe that my mother cannot maintain her present attitude. But I do not, alack! share their belief. I realize, as no one can who does not live in the same house with her, the strength and obstinacy of her will. She will, I suppose, leave my father's half-million to some of the charitable societies in which she believes, and we must try and behave as though it had never existed. I don't regret it for myself. But, of course, there are many public causes one would have liked to help."If I can, I will come down to Beechcote on Saturday again. Meanwhile, do let me urge you to take care of your health, and not to dwell too much on a past that nothing can alter. I understand, of course, how it must affect you; but I am sure it will be best--best, indeed, for us both--that you should now put it as much as possible out of your mind. It may not be possible to hide the sad truth. I fear it will not be. But I am sure that the less said--or even thought--about it, the better. You won't think me unkind, will you?"You will see a report of my speech in the debate to-morrow. It certainly made an impression, and I must manage, if I can, to stick to Parliament. But we will consult when we meet."Your most loving OLIVER."
As he wrote it Marsham had been uncomfortably conscious of another self beside him--mocking, or critical.
"I don't regret it for myself." Pshaw! What was there to choose between him and his mother? There, on his writing-table, lay a number of recent bills, and some correspondence as to a Scotch moor he had persuaded his mother to take for the coming season. There was now to be an end, he supposed, to the expenditure which the bills represented, and an end to expensive moors. "I don't regret it for myself." Damned humbug! When did any man, brought up in wealth, make the cold descent to poverty and self-denial without caring? Yet he let the sentence stand. He was too sleepy, too inert, to rewrite it.
And how cold were all his references to the catastrophe! He groaned as he thought of Diana--as though he actually saw the vulture gnawing at the tender breast. Had she slept?--had the tears stopped? Let him tear up the beastly thing, and begin again!
No. His head fell forward on his arm. Some dull weight of character--of disillusion--interposed. He could do no better. He shut, stamped, and posted what he had written.
At mid-day, in her Brookshire village, Diana received the letter--with another from London, in a handwriting she did not know.
When she had read Marsham's it dropped from her hand. The color flooded her cheeks--as though the heart leaped beneath a fresh blow which it could not realize or measure. Was it so she would have written to Oliver if--
She was sitting at her writing-table in the drawing-room. Her eyes wandered through the mullioned window beside her to the hill-side and the woods. This was Wednesday. Four days since, among those trees, Oliver had spoken to her. During those four days it seemed to her that, in the old Hebrew phrase, she had gone down into the pit. All the nameless dreads and terrors of her youth, all the intensified fears of the last few weeks, had in a few minutes become real and verified--only in a shape infinitely more terrible than any fear among them all had ever dared to prophesy. The story of her mother--the more she knew of it, the more she realized it, the more sharply it bit into the tissues of life; the more it seemed to set Juliet Sparling and Juliet Sparling's child alone by themselves--in a dark world. Diana had never yet had the courage to venture out-of-doors since the news came to her; she feared to see even her old friends the Roughsedges, and had been invisible to them since the Saturday; she feared even the faces of the village children.
All through she seemed to have been clinging to Marsham's supporting hand as to the clew which might--when nature had had its way--lead her back out of this labyrinth of pain. But surely he would let her sorrow awhile!--would sorrow with her. Under the strange coldness and brevity of his letter, she felt like the children in the market-place of old--"We have mourned unto you, and ye have not wept."
Yet if her story was not to be a source of sorrow--of divine pity--it could only be a source of disgrace and shame. Tears might wash it out! But to hate and resent it--so it seemed to her--must be--in a world, where every detail of such a thing was or would be known--to go through life branded and crushed by it. If the man who was to be her husband could only face it thus (by a stern ostracism of the dead, by silencing all mention of them between himself and her), her cheeks could never cease to burn, her heart to shrink.
Now at last she felt herself weighed indeed to the earth, because Marsham, in that measured letter, had made her realize the load on him.
All that huge wealth he was to give up for her? His mother had actually the power to strip him of his inheritance?--and would certainly exercise it to punish him for marrying her--Diana?
Humiliation came upon her like a flood, and a bitter insight followed. Between the lines of the letter she read the reluctance, the regrets of the man who had written it. She saw that he would be faithful to her if he could, but that in her own concentration of love she had accepted what Oliver had not in truth the strength to give her. The Marsham she loved had suddenly disappeared, and in his place was a Marsham whom she might--at a personal cost he would never forget, and might never forgive--persuade or compel to marry her.
She sprang up. For the first time since the blow had fallen, vigor had returned to her movements and life to her eyes.
"Ah, no!" she said to herself, panting a little. "No!"
A letter fell to the ground--the letter in the unknown handwriting. Some premonition made her open it and prepared her for the signature.
"MY DEAR MISS MALLORY,--I heard of the sad discovery which had taken place, from my cousin, Miss Drake, on Sunday morning, and came up at once from the country to be with my mother; for I know well with what sympathy she had been following Oliver's wishes and desires. It is a very painful business. I do most truly regret the perplexing situation in which you find yourself, and I am sure you will not resent it if, as Oliver's sister, I write you my views on the matter."I am afraid it is useless to expect that my mother should give way. And, then, the question is, What is the right course for you and Oliver to pursue? I understand that he proposed to you, and you accepted him, in ignorance of the melancholy truth. And, like a man of honor, he proposes to stand by his engagement--unless, of course, you release him."Now, if I were in your place, I should expect to consider such a matter not as affecting myself only, but in its relation to society--and the community. Our first duty is to Society. We owe it everything, and we must not act selfishly toward it. Consider Oliver's position. He has his foot on the political ladder. Every session his influence in Parliament increases. His speech to-night was--as I hear from a man who has just come from the debate--the most brilliant he has yet made. It is extremely likely that when our party comes in again he will have office, and in ten or fifteen years' time what is there to prevent his being even Prime Minister?--with all the mighty influence over millions of human beings which that means?"But to give him every chance in his career money is, unfortunately, indispensable. Every English Prime Minister has been a rich man. It may be a blot on our English life. I think it is. But, then, I have been all my life on the side of the poor. You, who are a Tory and an Imperialist, who sympathize with militarism and with war, will agree that it is important our politicians should be among the 'Haves,' that a man's possessionsdomatter to his party and his cause."They matter especially--at the present moment--toourparty andourcause. We are the poor party, and our rich men are few and far between."You may say that you would help him, and that your own money would be at his disposal. But could a man live upon his wife, in such circumstances, with any self-respect? Of course, I know that you are very young, and I trust that your views on many subjects, social and political, will change, and change materially, before long. It is a serious thing for women nowadays to throw themselves across the path of progress. At the same time I see that you have a strong--if I may say so--a vehement character. It may not be easy for you to cast off at once what, I understand, has been your father's influence. And meanwhile Oliver would be fighting all your father's and your ideas--largely on your money; for he has only a thousand a year of his own."Please let me assure you that I am not influenced by my mother's views. She attaches importance--an exaggerated--if she were not my mother, I should say an absurd--importance, to the family. Whereas, ideas--the great possibilities of the future--when free men and women shall lead a free and noble life--these are what influenceme--these are what I live for."It will cause you both pain to separate. I know that. But summon a rational will to your aid, and you will soon see that passion is a poor thing compared to impersonal and unselfish aims. The cause of women--their political and social enfranchisement--the freeing of men from the curse of militarism--of both men and women from the patriotic lies which make us bullies and cowards--it is to these I would invite you--when you have overcome a mere personal grief."I fear I shall seem to you a voice crying in the wilderness; but I write in Oliver's interest--and your own."Yours sincerely,"ISABEL FOTHERINGHAM."P.S. Our secretary, Mrs. Derrick Smith, at the Mary Wollstonecraft Club, will always be glad to send you any literature you might require."
Diana read to the end. She put it down with something like a smile. As she paced the room, her head thrown back, her hands behind her, the weight had been lifted from her; she breathed from a freer breast.
Very soon she went back to her desk and began to write.
"My dear Oliver,--I did not realize how things were when you came yesterday. Now I see. You must not marry me. I could not bear to bring poverty upon you, and--to-day--I do not feel that I have the strength to meet your mother's and your sister's opposition."Will you please tell Lady Lucy and Mrs. Fotheringham that I have received their letters? It will not be necessary to answer them. You will tell them that I have broken off the engagement."You were very good to me yesterday. I thank you with all my heart. But it is not in my power--yet--to forget it all. My mother was so young--and it seems but the other day."I would not injure your career for the world. I hope that all good will come to you--always."Probably Mrs. Colwood and I shall go abroad for a little while. I want to be alone--and it will be easiest so. Indeed, if possible, we shall leave London to-morrow night. Good-bye."DIANA."
She rose, and stood looking down upon the letter. A thought struck her. Would he take the sentence giving the probable time of her departure as an invitation to him to come and meet her at the station?--as showing a hope that he might yet persist--and prevail?
She stooped impetuously to rewrite the letter. Instead, her tears fell on it. Sobbing, she put it up--she pressed it to her lips. If he did come--might they not press hands?--look into each other's eyes?--just once, once more?
An hour later the home was in a bustle of packing and housekeeping arrangements. Muriel Colwood, with a small set face and lips, and eyes that would this time have scorned to cry, was writing notes and giving directions. Meanwhile, Diana had written to Mrs. Roughsedge, and, instead of answering the letter, the recipient appeared in person, breathless with the haste she had made, the gray curls displaced.
Diana told her story, her slender fingers quivering in the large motherly hand whose grasp soothed her, her eyes avoiding the tender dismay and pity writ large on the old face beside her; and at the end she said, with an effort:
"Perhaps you have all expected me to be engaged to Mr. Marsham. He did propose to me--but--I have refused him."
She faltered a little as she told her first falsehood, but she told it.
"My dear!" cried Mrs. Roughsedge, "he can't--he won't--accept that! If he ever cared for you, he will care for you tenfold more now!"
"It was I," said Diana, hurriedly--"I have done it. And, please, I would rather it were now all forgotten. Nobody else need know, need they, that he proposed?"
She stroked her friend's hand piteously. Mrs. Roughsedge, foreseeing the storm of gossip that would be sweeping in a day or two through the village and the neighborhood, could not command herself to speak. Her questions--her indignation--choked her. At the end of the conversation, when Diana had described such plans as she had, and the elder lady rose to go, she said, faltering:
"May Hugh come and say good-bye?"
Diana shrank a moment, and then assented. Mrs. Roughsedge folded the girl to her heart, and fairly broke down. Diana comforted her; but it seemed as if her own tears were now dry. When they were parting, she called her friend back a moment.
"I think," she said, steadily, "it would be best now that everybody here should know what my name was, and who I am. Will you tell the Vicar, and anybody else you think of? I shall come back to live here. I know everybody will be kind--" Her voice died away.
The March sun had set and the lamps were lit when Hugh Roughsedge entered the drawing-room where Diana sat writing letters, paying bills, absorbing herself in all the details of departure. The meeting between them was short. Diana was embarrassed, above all, by the tumult of suppressed feeling she divined in Roughsedge. For the first time she must perforce recognize what hitherto she had preferred not to see: what now she was determined not to know. The young soldier, on his side, was stifled by his own emotions--wrath--contempt--pity; and by a maddening desire to wrap this pale stricken creature in his arms, and so protect her from an abominable world. But something told him--to his despair--that she had been in Marsham's arms; had given her heart irrevocably; and that, Marsham's wife or no, all was done and over for him, Hugh Roughsedge.
Yet surely in time--in time! That was the inner clamor of the mind, as he bid her good-bye, after twenty minutes' disjointed talk, in which, finally, neither dared to go beyond commonplace. Only at the last, as he held her hand, he asked her:
"I may write to you from Nigeria?"
Rather shyly, she assented; adding, with a smile:
"But I am a bad letter-writer!"
"You are an angel!" he said, hoarsely, lifted her hand, kissed it, and rushed away.
She was shaken by the scene, and had hardly composed herself again to a weary grappling with business when the front door bell rang once more, and the butler appeared.
"Mr. Lavery wishes to know, miss, if you will see him."
The Vicar! Diana's heart sank. Must she? But some deep instinct--some yearning--interfered, and she bade him be admitted.
Then she stood waiting, dreading some onslaught on the secrets of her mind and heart--some presumption in the name of religion.
The tall form entered, in the close-buttoned coat, the gaunt oblong of the face poked forward, between the large protruding ears, the spectacled eyes blinking.
"May I come in? I will only keep you a few minutes."
She came forward and gave him her hand. The door shut behind him.
"Won't you sit down?"
"I think not. You must be very busy. I only came to say a few words. Miss Mallory!"
He still held her hand. Diana trembled, and looked up.
"--I fear you may have thought me harsh.Iblame myself in many respects. Will you forgive me? Mrs. Roughsedge has told me what you wished her to tell me. Before you go, will you still let me give you Christ's message?"
The tears rushed back to Diana's eyes; she looked at him silently.
"'Blessed are they that mourn,'" he said, gently, with a tender dignity, "'for they shall be comforted!'"
Their eyes met. From the man's face and manner everything had dropped but the passion of Christian charity, mingled with a touch of remorse--as though, in what had been revealed to him, the servant had realized some mysterious rebuke of his Lord.
"Remember that!" he went on. "Your mourning is your blessing. God's love will come to you through it--and the sense of fellowship with Christ. Don't cast it from you--don't put it away."
"I know," she said, brokenly. "It is agony, but it is sacred."
His eyes grew dim. She withdrew her hand, and they talked a little about her journey.
"But you will come back," he said to her, presently, with earnestness; "your friends here will think it an honor and a privilege to welcome you."
"Oh yes, I shall come back. Unless--I have some friends in London--East London. Perhaps I might work there."
He shook his head.
"No, you are not strong enough. Come back here. There is God's work to be done in this village, Miss Mallory. Come and put your hand to it. But not yet--not yet."
Then her weariness told him that he had said enough, and he went.
Late that night Diana tore herself from Muriel Colwood, went alone to her room, and locked her door. Then she drew back the curtains, and gazed once more on the same line of hills she had seen rise out of the wintry mists on Christmas morning. The moon was still behind the down, and a few stars showed among the clouds.
She turned away, unlocked a drawer, and, falling upon her knees by the bed, she spread out before her the fragile and time-stained paper that held her mother's last words to her.
"MY LITTLE DIANA--my precious child,--It may be--it will be--years before this reaches you. I have made your father promise to let you grow up without any knowledge or reminder of me. It was difficult, but at last--he promised. Yet there must come a time when it will hurt you to think of your mother. When it does--listen, my darling. Your father knows that I loved him always! He knows--and he has forgiven. He knows too what I did--and how--so does Sir James. There is no place, no pardon for me on earth--but you may still love me, Diana--still love me--and pray for me. Oh, my little one!--they brought you in to kiss me a little while ago--and you looked at me with your blue deep eyes--and then you kissed me--so softly--a little strangely--with your cool lips--and now I have made the nurse lift me up that I may write. A few days--perhaps even a few hours--will bring me rest. I long for it. And yet it is sweet to be with your father, and to hear your little feet on the stairs. But most sweet, perhaps, because it must end so soon. Death makes these days possible, and for that I bless and welcome death. I seem to be slipping away on the great stream--so gently--tired--only your father's hand. Good-bye--my precious Diana--your dying--and very weary"MOTHER."
The words sank into Diana's young heart. They dulled the smart of her crushed love; they awakened a sense of those forces ineffable and majestic, terrible and yet "to be entreated," which hold and stamp the human life. Oliver had forsaken her. His kiss was still on her lips. Yet he had forsaken her. She must stand alone. Only--in the spirit--she put out clinging hands; she drew her mother to her breast; she smiled into her father's eyes. One with them; and so one with all who suffer! She offered her life to those great Forces; to the hidden Will. And thus, after three days of torture, agony passed into a trance of ecstasy--of aspiration.
But these were the exaltations of night and silence. With the returning day, Diana was again the mere girl, struggling with misery and nervous shock. In the middle of the morning arrived a special messenger with a letter from Marsham. It contained arguments and protestations which in the living mouth might have had some power. That the living mouth was not there to make them was a fact more eloquent than any letter. For the first time Diana was conscious of impatience, of a natural indignation. She merely asked the messenger to say that "there was no answer."
Yet, as they crossed London her heart fluttered within her. One moment her eyes were at the window scanning the bustle of the streets; the next she would force herself to talk and smile with Muriel Colwood.
Mrs. Colwood insisted on dinner at the Charing Cross Hotel. Diana submitted. Afterward they made their way, along the departure platform, to the Dover-Calais train. They took their seats. Muriel Colwood knew--felt it indeed, through every nerve--that the girl with her was still watching, still hoping, still straining each bodily perception in a listening expectancy.
The train was very full, and the platform crowded with friends, luggage, and officials. Upon the tumult the great electric lamps threw their cold ugly light. The roar and whistling of the trains filled the vast station. Diana, meanwhile, sat motionless in her corner, looking out, one hand propping her face.
But no one came. The signal was given for departure. The train glided out. Diana's head slipped back and her eyes closed. Muriel, stifling her tears, dared not approach her.
Northward and eastward from Dover Harbor, sweep beyond sweep, rose the white cliffs that are to the arriving and departing Englishman the symbols of his country.
Diana, on deck, wrapped in veil and cloak, watched them disappear, in mists already touched by the moonrise. Six months before she had seen them for the first time, had fed her eyes upon the "dear, dear land," as cliffs and fields and houses flashed upon the sight, yearning toward it with the passion of a daughter and an exile.
In those six months she had lived out the first chapter of her youth. She stood between two shores of life, like the vessel from which she gazed; vanishing lights and shapes behind her; darkness in front.
"Where lies the land to which the ship must go?Far, far ahead is all the seamen know!"
"Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,How can it? O how can Love's eye be trueThat is so vexed with watching and with tears?"
London was in full season. But it was a cold May, and both the town and its inhabitants wore a gray and pinched aspect. Under the east wind an unsavory dust blew along Piccadilly; the ladies were still in furs; the trees were venturing out reluctantly, showing many a young leaf bitten by night frosts; the Park had but a scanty crowd; and the drapers, oppressed with summer goods, saw their muslins and gauzes in the windows give up their freshness for naught.
Nevertheless, the ferment of political and social life had seldom been greater. A Royal wedding in the near future was supposed to account for the vigor of London's social pulse; the streets, indeed, were already putting up poles and decorations. And a general election, expected in the autumn, if not before, accounted for the vivacity of the clubs, the heat of the newspapers, and the energy of the House of Commons, where all-night sittings were lightly risked by the Government and recklessly challenged by the Opposition. Everybody was playing to the gallery--i.e., the country. Old members were wooing their constituencies afresh; young candidates were spending feverish energies on new hazards, and anxiously inquiring at what particular date in the campaign tea-parties became unlawful. Great issues were at stake; for old parties were breaking up under the pressure of new interests and passions; within the Liberal party the bubbling of new faiths was at its crudest and hottest; and those who stood by the slow and safe ripening of Freedom, from "precedent to precedent," were in much anxiety as to what shape or shapes might ultimately emerge from a brew so strong and heady. Which only means that now, as always, Whigs and Radicals were at odds; and the "unauthorized programme" of the day was sending its fiery cross through the towns and the industrial districts of the north.
A debate of some importance was going on in the House of Commons. The Tory Government had brought in a Land Bill, intended, no doubt, rather as bait for electors than practical politics. It was timid and ill-drafted, and the Opposition, in days when there were still some chances in debate, joyously meant to kill it, either by frontal attack or by obstruction. But, in the opinion of the Left Wing of the party, the chief weapon of its killing should be the promise of a much larger and more revolutionary measure from the Liberal side. The powerful Right Wing, however, largely represented on the front bench, held that you could no more make farmers than saints by Act of Parliament, and that only by slow and indirect methods could the people be drawn back to the land. There was, in fact, little difference between them and the front bench opposite, except a difference in method; only the Whig brains were the keener; and in John Ferrier the Right Wing had a personality and an oratorical gift which the whole Tory party admired and envied.
There had been a party meeting on the subject of the Bill, and Ferrier and the front bench had, on the whole, carried the indorsement of their policy. But there was an active and discontented minority, full of rebellious projects for the general election.
On this particular afternoon Ferrier had been dealing with the Government Bill on the lines laid down by the meeting at Grenville House. His large pale face (the face of a student rather than a politician), with its small eyes and overhanging brows; the straight hair and massive head; the heavy figure closely buttoned in the familiar frock-coat; the gesture easy, animated, still young--on these well-known aspects a crowded House had bent its undivided attention. Then Ferrier sat down; a bore rose; and out flowed the escaping tide to the lobbies and the Terrace.
Marsham found himself on the Terrace, among a group of malcontents: Barton, grim and unkempt, prophet-eyes blazing, mouth contemptuous; the Scotchman McEwart, who had been one of the New Year's visitors to Tallyn, tall, wiry, red-haired, the embodiment of all things shrewd and efficient; and two or three more. A young London member was holding forth, masking what was really a passion of disgust in a slangy nonchalance.
"What's the good of turning these fellows out--will anybody tell me?--if that's all Ferrier can do for us? Think I prefer 'em to that kind of mush! As for Barton, I've had to hold him down by the coat-tails!"
Barton allowed the slightest glint of a smile to show itself for an instant. The speaker--Roland Lankester--was one of his few weaknesses. But the frown returned. He strolled along with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground; his silence was the silence of one in whom the fire was hot.
"Most disappointing--all through!" said McEwart, with emphasis. "The facts wrongly chosen--the argument absurd. It'll take all the heart out of our fellows in the country."
Marsham looked up.
"Well, it isn't for want of pressure. Ferrier's life hasn't been worth living this last month."
The tone was ambiguous. It fitted either with defence or indictment.
The London member--Roland Lankester, who was a friend of Marion Vincent, and of Frobisher, represented an East End constituency, and lived there--looked at the speaker with a laugh. "That's perfectly true. What have we all been doing but 'gingering' Ferrier for the last six months? And here's the result! No earthly good in wearing one's self to fiddle-strings over this election! I shall go and keep pigs in Canada!"
The group strolled along the Terrace, leaving behind them an animated crowd, all busy with the same subject. In the middle of it they passed Ferrier himself--flushed--with the puffy eyes of a man who never gets more than a quarter allowance of sleep; his aspect, nevertheless, smiling and defiant, and a crowd of friends round him. The wind blew chill up the river, crisping the incoming tide; and the few ladies who were being entertained at tea drew their furs about them, shivering.
"He'llhaveto go to the Lords!--that's flat--if we win this election. If we come back, the new members will never stand him; and if we don't--well, I suppose, in that case, he does as well as anybody else."
The remarks were McEwart's. Lankester turned a sarcastic eye upon him.
"Don't you be unjust, my boy. Ferrier's one of the smartest Parliamentary hands England has ever turned out"
At this Barton roused.
"What's the good of that?" he asked, with quiet ferocity, in his strong Lancashire accent. "What does Ferrier's smartness matter to us? The Labor men are sick of it! All he's asked to do is to runstraight!--as the party wants him to run."
"All right.Ad leones!Ferrier to the Lords. I'm agreeable. Only I don't know what Marsham will say to it."
Lankester pushed back a very shabby pot-hat to a still more rakish angle, buttoning up an equally shabby coat the while against the east wind. He was a tall fair-haired fellow, half a Dane in race and aspect: broad-shouldered, loose-limbed, with a Franciscan passion for poverty and the poor. But a certain humorous tolerance for all sorts and conditions of men, together with certain spiritual gifts, made him friends in all camps. Bishops consulted him, the Socialists claimed him; perhaps it was the East End children who possessed him most wholly. Nevertheless, there was a fierce strain in him; he could be a fanatic, even a hard fanatic, on occasion.
Marsham did not show much readiness to take up the reference to himself. As he walked beside the others, his slender elegance, his handsome head, and fashionable clothes marked him out from the rugged force of Barton, the middle-class alertness of McEwart, the rubbed apostolicity of Lankester. But the face was fretful and worried.
"Ferrier has not the smallest intention of going to the Lords!" he said, at last--not without a touch of impatience.
"That's the party's affair."
"The party owes him a deal too much to insist upon anything against his will."
"Does it!--doesit!" said Lankester. "Ferrier always reminds me of a cat we possessed at home, who brought forth many kittens. She loved them dearly, and licked them all over--tenderly--all day. But by the end of the second day they were always dead. Somehow she had killed them all. That's what Ferrier does with all our little Radical measures--loves 'em all--and kills 'em all."
McEwart flushed.
"Well, it's no good talking," he said, doggedly; "we've done enough of that! There will be a meeting of the Forward Club next week, and we shall decide on our line of action."
"Broadstone will never throw him over." Lankester threw another glance at Marsham. "You'll only waste your breath."
Lord Broadstone was the veteran leader of the party, who in the event of victory at the polls would undoubtedly be Prime Minister.
"He can take Foreign Affairs, and go to the Lords in a blaze of glory," said McEwart. "But he'simpossible!--as leader in the Commons. The party wants grit--not dialectic."
Marsham still said nothing. The others fell to discussing the situation in much detail, gradually elaborating what were, in truth, the first outlines of a serious campaign against Ferrier's leadership. Marsham listened, but took no active part in it. It was plain, however, that none of the group felt himself in any way checked by Marsham's presence or silence.
Presently Marsham--the debate in the House having fallen to levels of dulness "measureless to man"--remembered that his mother had expressed a wish that he might come home to dinner. He left the House, lengthening his walk for exercise, by way of Whitehall and Piccadilly. His expression was still worried and preoccupied. Mechanically he stopped to look into a picture-dealer's shop, still open, somewhere about the middle of Piccadilly. A picture he saw there made him start. It was a drawing of the chestnut woods of Vallombrosa, in the first flush and glitter of spring, with a corner of one of the monastic buildings, now used as a hotel.
Shewas there. At an official crush the night before he had heard Chide say to Lady Niton that Miss Mallory had written to him from Vallombrosa, and was hoping to stay there till the end of June. So that she was sitting, walking, reading, among those woods. In what mood?--with what courage? In any case, she was alone; fighting her grief alone; looking forward to the future alone. Except, of course, for Mrs. Colwood--nice, devoted little thing!
He moved on, consumed with regrets and discomfort. During the two months which had elapsed since Diana had left England, he had, in his own opinion, gone through a good deal. He was pursued by the memory of that wretched afternoon when he had debated with himself whether he should not, after all, go and intercept her at Charing Cross, plead his mother's age and frail health, implore her to give him time; not to break off all relations; to revert, at least, to the old friendship. He had actually risen from his seat in the House of Commons half an hour before the starting of the train; had made his way to the Central Lobby, torn by indecision; and had there been pounced upon by an important and fussy constituent. Of course, he could have shaken the man off. But just the extra resolution required to do it had seemed absolutely beyond his power, and when next he looked at the clock it was too late. He went back to the House, haunted by the imagination of a face. She would never have mentioned her route unless she had meant "Come and say good-bye!"--unless she had longed for a parting look and word. And he--coward that he was--had shirked it--had denied her last mute petition.
Well!--after all--might it not simply have made matters worse?--for her no less than for him? The whole thing was his mother's responsibility. He might, no doubt, have pushed it all through, regardless of consequences; he might have accepted the Juliet Sparling heritage, thrown over his career, braved his mother, and carried off Diana by storm--if, that is, she would ever have allowed him to make the sacrifice as soon as she fully understood it. But it would have been one of the most quixotic things ever done. He had made his effort to do it; and--frankly--he had not been capable of it. He wondered how many men of his acquaintance would have been capable of it.
Nevertheless, he had fallen seriously in his own estimation. Nor was he unaware that he had lost a certain amount of consideration with the world at large. His courtship of Diana had been watched by a great many people: and at the same moment that it came to an end and she left England, the story of her parentage had become known in Brookshire. There had been a remarkable outburst of public sympathy and pity, testifying, no doubt, in a striking way, to the effect produced by the girl's personality, even in those few months of residence. And the fact that she was not there, that only the empty house that she had furnished with so much girlish pleasure remained to bear its mute testimony to her grief, made feeling all the hotter. Brookshire beheld her as a charming and innocent victim, and, not being able to tell her so, found relief in blaming and mocking at the man who had not stood by her. For it appeared there was to be no engagement, although all Brookshire had expected it. Instead of it, came the announcement of the tragic truth, the girl's hurried departure, and the passionate feeling on her behalf of people like the Roughsedges, or her quondam critic, the Vicar.
Marsham, thereupon, had become conscious of a wind of unpopularity blowing through his constituency. Some of the nice women of the neighborhood, with whom he had been always hitherto a welcome and desired guest, had begun to neglect him; men who would never have dreamed of allowing their own sons to marry a girl in Diana's position, greeted him with a shade less consideration than usual; and the Liberal agent in the division had suddenly ceased to clamor for his attendance and speeches at rural meetings. There could be no question that by some means or other the story had got abroad--no doubt in a most inaccurate and unjust form--and was doing harm.
Reflections of this kind were passing through his mind as he crossed Hyde Park Corner on his way to Eaton Square. Opposite St. George's Hospital he suddenly became aware of Sir James Chide on the other side of the road. At sight of him, Marsham waved his hand, quickening his pace that he might come up with him. Sir James, seeing him, gave him a perfunctory greeting, and suddenly turned aside to hail a hansom, into which he jumped, and was carried promptly out of sight.
Marsham was conscious of a sudden heat in the face. He had never yet been so sharply reminded of a changed relation. After Diana's departure he had himself written to Chide, defending his own share in the matter, speaking bitterly of the action taken by his mother and sister, and lamenting that Diana had not been willing to adopt the waiting and temporizing policy, which alone offered any hope of subduing his mother's opposition. Marsham declared--persuading himself, as he wrote, of the complete truth of the statement--that he had been quite willing to relinquish his father's inheritance for Diana's sake, and that it was her own action alone that had separated them. Sir James had rather coldly acknowledged the letter, with the remark that few words were best on a subject so painful; and since then there had been no intimacy between the two men. Marsham could only think with discomfort of the scene at Felton Park, when a man of passionate nature and romantic heart had allowed him access to the most sacred and tragic memories of his life. Sir James felt, he supposed, that he had been cheated out of his confidence--cheated out of his sympathy. Well!--it was unjust!
He reached Eaton Square in good time for dinner, and found his mother in the drawing-room.
"You look tired, Oliver," she said, as he kissed her.
"It's the east wind, I suppose--beastly day!"
Lady Lucy surveyed him, as he stood, moody and physically chilled, with his back to the fire.
"Was the debate interesting?"
"Ferrier made a very disappointing speech. All our fellows are getting restive."
Lady Lucy looked astonished.
"Surely they ought to trust his judgment! He has done so splendidly for the party."
Marsham shook his head.
"I wish you would use your influence," he said, slowly. "There is a regular revolt coming on. A large number of men on our side say they won't be led by him; that if we come in, he must go to the Lords."
Lady Lucy started.
"Oliver!" she said, indignantly, "you know it would break his heart!"
And before both minds there rose a vision of Ferrier's future, as he himself certainly conceived it. A triumphant election--the Liberals in office--himself, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the Commons--with the reversion of the Premiership whenever old Lord Broadstone should die or retire--this indeed had been Ferrier's working understanding with his party for years; years of strenuous labor, and on the whole of magnificent generalship. Deposition from the leadership of the Commons, with whatever compensations, could only mean to him, and to the world in general, the failure of his career.
"They would give him Foreign Affairs, of course," said Marsham, after a pause.
"Nothing that they could give him would make up!" said Lady Lucy, with energy. "You certainly, Oliver, could not lend yourself to any intrigue of the kind."
Marsham shrugged his shoulders.
"My position is not exactly agreeable! I don't agree with Ferrier, and I do agree with the malcontents. Moreover, when we come in, they will represent the strongest element in the party, with the future in their hands."
Lady Lucy looked at him with sparkling eyes.
"You can't desert him, Oliver!--not you!"
"Perhaps I'd better drop out of Parliament!" he said, impatiently. "The game sometimes doesn't seem worth the candle."
Lady Lucy--alarmed--laid a hand on his.
"Don't say those things, Oliver. You know you have never done so well as this year."
"Yes--up to two months ago."
His mother withdrew her hand. She perfectly understood. Oliver often allowed himself allusions of this kind, and the relations of mother and son were not thereby improved.
Silence reigned for a few minutes. With a hand that shook slightly, Lady Lucy drew toward her a small piece of knitting she had been occupied with when Marsham came in, and resumed it. Meanwhile there flashed through his mind one of those recollections that are only apparently incongruous. He was thinking of a dinner-party which his mother had given the night before; a vast dinner of twenty people; all well-fed, prosperous, moderately distinguished, and, in his opinion, less than moderately amused. The dinner had dragged; the guests had left early; and he had come back to the drawing-room after seeing off the last of them, stifled with yawns. Waste of food, waste of money, waste of time--waste of everything! He had suddenly been seized with a passionate sense of the dulness of his home life; with a wonder how long he could go on submitting to it. And as he recalled these feelings--as of dust in the mouth--there struck across them an image from a dream-world. Diana sat at the head of the long table; Diana in white, with her slender neck, and the blue eyes, with their dear short-sighted look, her smile, and the masses of her dark hair. The dull faces on either side faded away; the lights, the flowers were for her--for her alone!
He roused himself with an effort. His mother was putting up her knitting, which, indeed, she had only pretended to work at.
"We must go and dress, Oliver. Oh! I forgot to tell you--Alicia arrived an hour ago."
"Ah!" He raised his eyebrows indifferently. "I hope she's well?"
"Brilliantly well--and as handsome as ever."
"Any love-affairs?"
"Several, apparently--but nothing suitable," said Lady Lucy, with a smile, as she rose and gathered together her possessions.
"It's time, I think, that Alicia made up her mind. She has been out a good while."
It gave him a curious pleasure--he could hardly tell why--to say this slighting thing of Alicia. After all, he had no evidence that she had done anything unfriendly or malicious at the time of the crisis. Instinctively, he had ranged her then and since as an enemy--as a person who had worked against him. But, in truth, he knew nothing for certain. Perhaps, after the foolish passages between them a year ago, it was natural that she should dislike and be critical of Diana. As to her coming now, it was completely indifferent to him. It would be a good thing, no doubt, for his mother to have her companionship.
As he opened the door for Lady Lucy to leave the room, he noticed her gray and fragile look.
"I believe you have had enough of London, mother. You ought to be getting abroad."
"I am all right," said Lady Lucy, hastily. "Like you, I hate east winds. Oliver, I have had a charming letter from Mr. Heath."
Mr. Heath had been for some months Marsham's local correspondent on the subject of the new Liberal hall in the county town. Lady Lucy had recently sent a check to the Committee, which had set all their building anxieties at rest.
Oliver looked down rather moodily upon her.
"It's pretty easy to write charming letters when people send you money. It would have been more to the purpose, I think, if they had taken a little trouble to raise some themselves!"
Lady Lucy flushed.
"I don't suppose Dunscombe is a place with many rich people in it," she said, in a voice of protest, as she passed him. Her thoughts hurt her as she mounted the stairs. Oliver had not received her gift--for, after all, it was a gift to him--very graciously. And the same might have been said of various other things that she had tried to do for him during the preceding months.
As to Marsham, while he dressed, he too recalled other checks that had been recently paid for him, other anxious attempts that had been made to please him. Since Diana had vanished from the scene, no complaisance, no liberality had been too much for his mother's good-will. He had never been so conscious of an atmosphere of money--much money. And there were moments--what he himself would have described as morbid moments--when it seemed to him the price of blood; when he felt himself to be a mere, crude moral tale embodied and walking about. Yet how ridiculous! What reasonable man, knowing what money means, and the power of it, but must have flinched a little under such a test as had been offered to him? His flinching had been nothing final or damnable. It was Diana, who, in her ignorance of the world, had expected him to take the sacrifice as though it were nothing and meant nothing--as no honest man of the world, in fact, could have taken it.
When Marsham descended he found Alicia already in possession of the drawing-room. Her gown of a brilliant shade of blue put the room out of joint, and beside the startling effect of her hair, all the washed-out decoration and conventional ornament which it contained made a worse effect than usual. There was nothing conventional or effaced about Alicia. She had become steadily more emphatic, more triumphant, more self-confident.
"Well, what have you been doing with yourself?--nothing but politics?" The careless, provocative smile with which the words were accomplished roused a kind of instant antagonism in Marsham.
"Nothing--nothing, at least, worth anybody's remembering."
"You spoke at Dunscombe last week."
"I did."
"And you went to help Mr. Collins at the Sheffield bye-election."
"I did. I am very much flattered that you know so much about my movements."
"I always know everything that you are doing," said Alicia, quietly--"you, and Cousin Lucy."
"You have the advantage of me then"; his laugh was embarrassed, but not amicable; "for I am afraid I have no idea what you have been doing since Easter!"
"I have been at home, flirting with the Curate," said Alicia, with a laugh. As she sat, with her head thrown back against the chair, the light sparkling on her white skin, on her necklace of yellow topazes, and the jewelled fan in her hands, the folds of blue chiffon billowing round her, there could be no doubt of her effectiveness. Marsham could not help laughing, too.
"Charming for the Curate! Did he propose to you?"
"Certainly. I think we were engaged for twenty-four hours."
"That you might see what it was like?Et après?"
"He was afraid he had mistaken my character"
Marsham laughed out.
"Poor victim! May I ask what you did it for?"
He found himself looking at her with curiosity and a certain anger. To be engaged, even for twenty-four hours, means that you allow your betrothed the privileges of betrothal. And in the case of Alicia no man was likely to forego them. She was really a little too unscrupulous!
"What I did it for? He was so nice and good-looking!"
"And there was nobody else?"
"Nobody. Home was a desert."
"H'm!" said Marsham. "Is he broken-hearted?"
Alicia shrugged her shoulders a little.
"I don't think so. I write him such charming letters. It is all simmering down beautifully."
Marsham moved restlessly to and fro, first putting down a lamp, then fidgeting with an evening paper. Alicia never failed to stir in him the instinct of sex, in its combative and critical form; and hostile as he believed he was to her, her advent had certainly shaken him out of his depression.
She meanwhile watched him with her teasing eyes, apparently enjoying his disapproval.
"I know exactly what you are thinking," she said, presently.
"I doubt it."
"Heartless coquette!" she said, mimicking his voice. "Never mind--her turn will come presently!"
"You don't allow my thoughts much originality."
"Why should I? Confess!--you did think that?"
Her small white teeth flashed in the smile she gave him. There was an exuberance of life and spirits about her that was rather disarming. But he did not mean to be disarmed.
"I did not think anything of the kind," he said, returning to the fire and looking down upon her; "simply because I know you too well."
Alicia reddened a little. It was one of her attractions that she flushed so easily.
"Because you know me too well?" she repeated. "Let me see. That means that you don't believe my turn will ever come?"
Marsham smiled.
"Your turn for what?" he said, dryly.
"I think we are getting mixed up!" Her laugh was as musical as he remembered it. "Let's begin again. Ah! here comes Cousin Lucy!"
Lady Lucy entered, ushering in an elderly relation, a Miss Falloden, dwelling also in Eaton Square: a comfortable lady with a comfortable income; a social stopper of chinks, moreover, kind and talkative; who was always welcome on occasions when life was not too strenuous or the company too critical. Marsham offered her his arm, and the little party made its way to the dining-room.
"Do you go back to the House, Oliver, to-night?" asked his mother, as the entree went round.
He replied in the affirmative, and resumed his conversation with Alicia. She was teasing him on the subject of some of his Labor friends in the House of Commons. It appeared that she had made the Curate, who was a Christian Socialist, take her to a Labor Conference at Bristol, where all the leaders were present, and her account of the proceedings and the types was both amusing and malicious. It was the first time that Marsham had known her attempt any conversation of the kind, and he recognized that her cleverness was developing. But many of the remarks she made on persons well known to him annoyed him extremely, and he could not help trying to punish her for them. Alicia, however, was not easily punished. She evaded him with a mosquito-like quickness, returning to the charge as soon as he imagined himself to have scored with an irrelevance or an absurdity which would have been exasperating in a man, but had somehow to be answered and politely handled from a woman. He lost his footing continually; and as she had none to lose, she had, on the whole, the best of it.