THE CRISIS
It was a confirmed suspicion when he beheld Lord Dannisburgh on the box
of a four-in-hand, and the peerless Diana beside him, cockaded lackeys in
plain livery and the lady's maid to the rear. But Lord Dannisburgh's
visit was a compliment, and the freak of his driving down under the beams
of Aurora on a sober Sunday morning capital fun; so with a gaiety that
was kept alive for the invalid Emma to partake of it, they rattled away
to the heights, and climbed them, and Diana rushed to the arms of her
friend, whispering and cooing for pardon if she startled her, guilty
of a little whiff of blarney:--Lord Dannisburgh wanted so much to be
introduced to her, and she so much wanted her to know him, and she hoped
to be graciously excused for thus bringing them together, 'that she might
be chorus to them!' Chorus was a pretty fiction on the part of the
thrilling and topping voice. She was the very radiant Diana of her
earliest opening day, both in look and speech, a queenly comrade, and a
spirit leaping and shining like a mountain water. She did not seduce,
she ravished. The judgement was taken captive and flowed with her.
As to the prank of the visit, Emma heartily enjoyed it and hugged it
for a holiday of her own, and doating on the beautiful, darkeyed, fresh
creature, who bore the name of the divine Huntress, she thought her a
true Dian in stature, step, and attributes, the genius of laughter
superadded. None else on earth so sweetly laughed, none so
spontaneously, victoriously provoked the healthful openness.
Her delicious chatter, and her museful sparkle in listening, equally
quickened every sense of life. Adorable as she was to her friend Emma
at all times, she that day struck a new fountain in memory. And it was
pleasant to see the great lord's admiration of this wonder. One could
firmly believe in their friendship, and his winning ideas from the
abounding bubbling well. A recurrent smile beamed on his face when
hearing and observing her. Certain dishes provided at the table were
Diana's favourites, and he relished them, asking for a second help,
and remarking that her taste was good in that as in all things. They
lunched, eating like boys. They walked over the grounds of Copsley, and
into the lanes and across the meadows of the cowslip, rattling, chatting,
enlivening the frosty air, happy as children biting to the juices of ripe
apples off the tree. But Tony was the tree, the dispenser of the rosy
gifts. She had a moment of reflection, only a moment, and Emma felt the
pause as though a cloud had shadowed them and a spirit had been shut
away. Both spoke of their happiness at the kiss of parting. That
melancholy note at the top of the wave to human hearts conscious of its
enforced decline was repeated by them, and Diana's eyelids blinked to
dismiss a tear.
'You have no troubles?' Emma said.
'Only the pain of the good-bye to my beloved,' said Diana. 'I have
never been happier--never shall be! Now you know him you think with me?
I knew you would. You have seen him as he always is--except when he is
armed for battle. He is the kindest of souls. And soul I say. He is
the one man among men who gives me notions of a soul in men.'
The eulogy was exalted. Lady Dunstane made a little mouth for Oh, in
correction of the transcendental touch, though she remembered their
foregone conversations upon men--strange beings that they are!--and
understood Diana's meaning.
'Really! really! honour !' Diana emphasized her extravagant praise, to
print it fast. 'Hear him speak of Ireland.'
'Would he not speak of Ireland in a tone to catch the Irishwoman?'
'He is past thoughts of catching, dearest. At that age men are pools of
fish, or what you will: they are not anglers. Next year, if you invite
us, we will come again.'
'But you will come to stay in the Winter?'
'Certainly. But I am speaking of one of my holidays.'
They kissed fervently. The lady mounted; the grey and portly lord
followed her; Sir Lukin flourished his whip, and Emma was left to brood
over her friend's last words: 'One of my holidays.' Not a hint to the
detriment of her husband had passed. The stray beam balefully
illuminating her marriage slipped from her involuntarily. Sir Lukin was
troublesome with his ejaculations that evening, and kept speculating on
the time of the arrival of the four-in-hand in London; upon which he
thought a great deal depended. They had driven out of town early, and
if they drove back late they would not be seen, as all the cacklers were
sure then to be dressing for dinner, and he would not pass the Clubs.
'I couldn't suggest it,' he said. 'But Dannisburgh's an old hand.
But they say he snaps his fingers at tattle, and laughs. Well, it
doesn't matter for him, perhaps, but a game of two . . . . Oh! it'll
be all right. They can't reach London before dusk. And the cat's away.'
'It's more than ever incomprehensible to me how she could have married
that man,' said his wife.
'I've long since given it up,' said he.
Diana wrote her thanks for the delightful welcome, telling of her drive
home to smoke and solitude, with a new host of romantic sensations to
keep her company. She wrote thrice in the week, and the same addition of
one to the ordinary number next week. Then for three weeks not a line.
Sir Lukin brought news from London that Warwick had returned, nothing to
explain the silence. A letter addressed to The Crossways was likewise
unnoticed. The supposition that they must be visiting on a round,
appeared rational; but many weeks elapsed, until Sir Lukin received a
printed sheet in the superscription of a former military comrade, who had
marked a paragraph. It was one of those journals, now barely credible,
dedicated to the putrid of the upper circle, wherein initials raised
sewer-lamps, and Asmodeus lifted a roof, leering hideously. Thousands
detested it, and fattened their crops on it. Domesticated beasts of
superior habits to the common will indulge themselves with a luxurious
roll in carrion, for a revival of their original instincts. Society was
largely a purchaser. The ghastly thing was dreaded as a scourge, hailed
as a refreshment, nourished as a parasite. It professed undaunted
honesty, and operated in the fashion of the worms bred of decay. Success
was its boasted justification. The animal world, when not rigorously
watched, will always crown with success the machine supplying its
appetites. The old dog-world took signal from it. The one-legged devil-
god waved his wooden hoof, and the creatures in view, the hunt was
uproarious. Why should we seem better than we are? down with hypocrisy,
cried the censor morum, spicing the lamentable derelictions of this and
that great person, male and female. The plea of corruption of blood in
the world, to excuse the public chafing of a grievous itch, is not less
old than sin; and it offers a merry day of frisky truant running to the
animal made unashamed by another and another stripped, branded, and
stretched flat. Sir Lukin read of Mr. and Mrs. W. and a distinguished
Peer of the realm. The paragraph was brief; it had a flavour. Promise
of more to come, pricked curiosity. He read it enraged, feeling for his
wife; and again indignant, feeling for Diana. His third reading found
him out: he felt for both, but as a member of the whispering world, much
behind the scenes, he had a longing for the promised insinuations, just
to know what they could say, or dared say. The paper was not shown to
Lady Dunstane. A run to London put him in the tide of the broken dam of
gossip. The names were openly spoken and swept from mouth to mouth of
the scandalmongers, gathering matter as they flew. He knocked at Diana's
door, where he was informed that the mistress of the house was absent.
More than official gravity accompanied the announcement. Her address was
unknown. Sir Lukin thought it now time to tell his wife. He began with
a hesitating circumlocution, in order to prepare her mind for bad news.
She divined immediately that it concerned Diana, and forcing him to speak
to the point, she had the story jerked out to her in a sentence. It
stopped her heart.
The chill of death was tasted in that wavering ascent from oblivion to
recollection. Why had not Diana come to her, she asked herself, and
asked her husband; who, as usual, was absolutely unable to say. Under
compulsory squeezing, he would have answered, that she did not come
because she could not fib so easily to her bosom friend: and this he
thought, notwithstanding his personal experience of Diana's generosity.
But he had other personal experiences of her sex, and her sex plucked at
the bright star and drowned it.
The happy day of Lord Dannisburgh's visit settled in Emma's belief as the
cause of Mr. Warwick's unpardonable suspicions and cruelty. Arguing from
her own sensations of a day that had been like the return of sweet health
to her frame, she could see nothing but the loveliest freakish innocence
in Diana's conduct, and she recalled her looks, her words, every fleeting
gesture, even to the ingenuousness of the noble statesman's admiration of
her, for the confusion of her unmanly and unworthy husband. And Emma was
nevertheless a thoughtful person; only her heart was at the head of her
thoughts, and led the file, whose reasoning was accurate on erratic
tracks. All night her heart went at fever pace. She brought the
repentant husband to his knees, and then doubted, strongly doubted,
whether she would, whether in consideration for her friend she could,
intercede with Diana to forgive him. In the morning she slept heavily.
Sir Lukin had gone to London early for further tidings. She awoke about
midday, and found a letter on her pillow. It was Diana's. Then while
her fingers eagerly tore it open, her heart, the champion rider over-
night, sank. It needed support of facts, and feared them: not in
distrust of that dear persecuted soul, but because the very bravest of
hearts is of its nature a shivering defender, sensitive in the presence
of any hostile array, much craving for material support, until the mind
and spirit displace it, depute it to second them instead of leading.
She read by a dull November fog-light a mixture of the dreadful and the
comforting, and dwelt upon the latter in abandonment, hugged it, though
conscious of evil and the little that there was to veritably console.
The close of the letter struck the blow. After bluntly stating that Mr.
Warwick had served her with a process, and that he had no case without
suborning witnesses, Diana said: 'But I leave the case, and him, to the
world. Ireland, or else America, it is a guiltless kind of suicide to
bury myself abroad. He has my letters. They are such as I can own to
you; and ask you to kiss me--and kiss me when you have heard all the
evidence, all that I can add to it, kiss me. You know me too well to
think I would ask you to kiss criminal lips. But I cannot face the
world. In the dock, yes. Not where I am expected to smile and sparkle,
on pain of incurring suspicion if I show a sign of oppression. I cannot
do that. I see myself wearing a false grin--your Tony! No, I do well to
go. This is my resolution; and in consequence,--my beloved! my only
truly loved on earth! I do not come to you, to grieve you, as I surely
should. Nor would it soothe me, dearest. This will be to you the best
of reasons. It could not soothe me to see myself giving pain to Emma.
I am like a pestilence, and let me swing away to the desert, for there
I do no harm. I know I am right. I have questioned myself--it is not
cowardice. I do not quail. I abhor the part of actress. I should do it
well--too well; destroy my soul in the performance. Is a good name
before such a world as this worth that sacrifice? A convent and self-
quenching;--cloisters would seem to me like holy dew. But that would be
sleep, and I feel the powers of life. Never have I felt them so
mightily. If it were not for being called on to act and mew, I would
stay, fight, meet a bayonet-hedge of charges and rebut them. I have my
natural weapons and my cause. It must be confessed that I have also more
knowledge of men and the secret contempt--it must be--the best of them
entertain for us. Oh! and we confirm it if we trust them. But they have
been at a wicked school.
'I will write. From whatever place, you shall have letters, and
constant. I write no more now. In my present mood I find no alternative
between rageing and drivelling. I am henceforth dead to the world.
Never dead to Emma till my breath is gone--poor flame! I blow at a bed-
room candle, by which I write in a brown fog, and behold what I am--
though not even serving to write such a tangled scrawl as this. I am of
no mortal service. In two days I shall be out of England. Within a week
you shall hear where. I long for your heart on mine, your dear eyes.
You have faith in me, and I fly from you!--I must be mad. Yet I feel
calmly reasonable. I know that this is the thing to do. Some years
hence a grey woman may return, to hear of a butterfly Diana, that had her
day and disappeared. Better than a mewing and courtseying simulacrum of
the woman--I drivel again. Adieu. I suppose I am not liable to capture
and imprisonment until the day when my name is cited to appear. I have
left London. This letter and I quit the scene by different routes--I
would they were one. My beloved! I have an ache--I think I am wronging
you. I am not mistress of myself, and do as something within me, wiser,
than I, dictates.--You will write kindly. Write your whole heart. It is
not compassion I want, I want you. I can bear stripes from you. Let me
hear Emma's voice--the true voice. This running away merits your
reproaches. It will look like--. I have more to confess: the tigress in
me wishes it were! I should then have a reckless passion to fold me
about, and the glory infernal, if you name it so, and so it would be--
of suffering for and with some one else. As it is, I am utterly
solitary, sustained neither from above nor below, except within myself,
and that is all fire and smoke, like their new engines.--I kiss this
miserable sheet of paper. Yes, I judge that I have run off a line--and
what a line! which hardly shows a trace for breathing things to follow
until they feel the transgression in wreck. How immensely nature seems
to prefer men to women!--But this paper is happier than the writer.
'Your TONY.'
That was the end. Emma kissed it in tears. They had often talked of the
possibility of a classic friendship between women, the alliance of a
mutual devotedness men choose to doubt of. She caught herself accusing
Tony of the lapse from friendship. Hither should the true friend have
flown unerringly.
The blunt ending of the letter likewise dealt a wound. She reperused it,
perused and meditated. The flight of Mrs. Warwick! She heard that cry-
fatal! But she had no means of putting a hand on her. 'Your Tony.' The
coldness might be set down to exhaustion: it might, yet her not coming to
her friend for counsel and love was a positive weight in the indifferent
scale. She read the letter backwards, and by snatches here and there;
many perusals and hours passed before the scattered creature exhibited in
its pages came to her out of the flying threads of the web as her living
Tony, whom she loved and prized and was ready to defend gainst the world.
By that time the fog had lifted; she saw the sky on the borders of milky
cloudfolds. Her invalid's chill sensitiveness conceived a sympathy in
the baring heavens, and lying on her sofa in the drawing-room she gained
strength of meditative vision, weak though she was to help, through
ceasing to brood on her wound and herself. She cast herself into her
dear Tony's feelings; and thus it came, that she imagined Tony would
visit The Crossways, where she kept souvenirs of her father, his cane,
and his writing-desk, and a precious miniature of him hanging above it,
before leaving England forever. The fancy sprang to certainty; every
speculation confirmed it.
Had Sir Lukin been at home she would have despatched him to The Crossways
at once. The West wind blew, and gave her a view of the Downs beyond the
Weald from her southern window. She thought it even possible to drive
there and reach the place, on the chance of her vivid suggestion, some
time after nightfall; but a walk across the room to try her forces was
too convincing of her inability. She walked with an ebony silver-mounted
stick, a present from Mr. Redworth. She was leaning on it when the card
of Thomas Redworth was handed to her.