"It's a deep mystery--the way the heart of man turns to one
woman out of all the rest he's seen i' the world, and makes it
easier for him to work seven year for _her_, like Jacob did for
Rachel, sooner than have any other woman for th'
asking."--GEORGE ELIOT.
Life has its crystal days, its rare hours of a stainless beauty, and a
joy so pure that we may dare to call in the flowers to rejoice with us,
and the language of the birds ceases to be an unknown tongue. Our real
life as we look back seems to have been lived in those days that memory
holds so tenderly. But it is not so in reality. Fortitude,
steadfastness, the makings of character, come not of rainbow-dawns and
quiet evenings, and the facile attainment of small desires. More
frequently they are the outcome of "the sleepless nights that mould
youth;" of hopes not dead, but run to seed; of the inadequate loves and
friendships that embitter early life, and warn off the young soul from
any more mistaking husks for bread.
John had had many heavy days, and, latterly, many days and long-drawn
nights, when it had been uphill work to bear in silence, or bear at all,
the lessons of that expensive teacher physical pain. And now pain was
past and convalescence was past, and Fate smiled, and drew from out her
knotted medley of bright and sombre colours one thread of pure
untarnished gold for John, and worked it into the pattern of his life.
Di was at Overleigh. Tall lilies had been ranged in the hall to welcome
her on her arrival. The dogs had been introduced to her at tea time.
Lindo had allowed himself to be patted, and after sniffing her dress
attentively with the air of a connoisseur, had retired with dignity to
his chair. Fritz, on the contrary, the amber-eyed dachshund, all
tail-wagging, and smiles, and saliva, had made himself cheap at once,
and had even turned over on his back, inviting friction where he valued
it most, before he had known Di five minutes.
Di was really at Overleigh. Each morning John woke up incredulous that
such a thing could be, each morning listened for her light footfall on
the stairs, and saw her come into the dining-hall, an active living
presence, through the cedar and ebony doors. There were a few other
people in the house, the sort of chance collection which poor relations,
arriving with great expectations and their best clothes, consider to be
a party. There were his aunt, Miss Fane, and a young painter who was
making studies for an Elizabethan interior, and some one else--no, more
than one, two or three others, John never clearly remembered afterwards
who, or whether they were male or female. Perhaps they were friends of
his aunt's. Anyhow, Mrs. Courtenay, who had proposed herself at her own
time, was apparently quite content. Di seemed content also, with the
light-hearted joyous content of a life that has in it no regret, no
story, no past.
John often wondered in these days whether there had ever been a time
when he had known what Di was like, what she looked like to other
people. He tried to recall her as he had seen her first at the
Speaker's; but that photograph of memory of a tall handsome girl was not
the least like Di. Di had become Di to John, not like anything or
anybody; Di in a shady hat sitting on the low wall of the bowling-green;
or Di riding with him through the forest, and up and away across the
opal moors; or, better still, Di singing ballads in the pictured
music-room in the evening, in her low small voice, that was not
considered good enough for general society, but which, in John's
opinion, was good enough for heaven itself.
The painter used to leave the others in the gallery and stroll in on
these occasions. He was a gentle, elegant person, with the pensive,
regretful air often observable in an imaginative man who has married
young. He made a little sketch of Di. He said it would not interfere, as
John feared it might, with the prosecution of his larger work.
Presently a wet morning came, and John took Di on an expedition to the
dungeons with torches, and afterwards over the castle. He showed her the
chapel, with its rose window and high altar, where the daughters of the
house had been married, where her namesake, Diana, had been wed to
Vernon of the Red Hand. He showed her the state-rooms with their
tapestried walls and painted ceilings. Di extorted a plaintive music
from the old spinet in the garret gallery where John's nurseries were.
Mitty came out to listen, and then it was her turn. She invited Di into
the nursery, which, in these later days, was resplendent with John's
gifts, the pride of Mitty's heart, the envy of the elect ladies of the
village. There were richly bound Bibles and church-services, and Russia
leather writing-cases, and inlaid tea-caddies, and china stands and
book-slides, and satin-lined workboxes bristling with cutlery, and
photograph frames and tea-sets--in fact, there was everything. There,
also, John's prizes were kept, for Mitty had taken charge of them for
him since the first holidays, when he had rushed up to the nursery to
dazzle her with the slim red volume, which he had not thought of showing
to his father; to which as time went on many others were added, and even
great volumes of Stuart Mill in calf and gold during the Oxford days.
Mitty showed them to Di, showed her John's little high chair by the
fire, and his Noah's ark. She gave Di full particulars of all his most
unromantic illnesses, and produced photographs, taken at her own
expense, of her lamb in every stage of bullet-headed childhood; from an
open-mouthed face and two clutching hands set in a lather of white lace,
to a sturdy, frowning little boy in a black velvet suit leaning on a
bat.
"There's the last," said Mitty, pointing with pride to a large steel
engraving of John in his heaviest expression, in a heavy gilt frame.
"That was done for the tenantry when Master John come of age." And
Mitty, in spite of a desperate attempt on John's part to divert the
conversation to other topics, went on to expatiate on that event until
John fairly bolted, leaving her in delighted possession of a new and
sympathetic listener.
"And all the steps was covered with red cloth," continued Mitty to her
visitor, "and the crowd, Miss Dinah, you could have walked on their
heads. And Mr. John come down into the hall, and Mr. Goodwin was with
him, and he turns round to us, for we was all in the hall drawn up in
two rows, from Mrs. Alcock to the scullery-maid, and he says, 'Where is
Mrs. Emson?' Those were his very words, Miss Tempest, my dear; and I
says, 'Here, sir!' for I was along of Mrs. Alcock. And he says to
Parker, 'Open both the doors, Parker,' and then he says, quite quiet,
as if it was just every day, 'I have not many relations here,' for there
was not a soul of his own family, miss, and he did not ask his mother's
folk, 'but,' he says, 'I have my two best friends here, and that is
enough. Goodwin,' he says, 'will you stand on my right, and you must
stand on the other side, Mitty.'"
"It took me here, miss," said Mitty, passing her hand over her
waistband. "And me in my cap and everything. I was all in a tremble. I
felt I could not go. But he just took me by the hand, and there we was,
miss, us three on the steps, and all the servants agathered round
behind, and a crowd such as never was in front. They trod down all the
flower-beds to nothing. Eh dear! when we come out, you should have heard
'em cheer, and when they seed me by him, I heard 'em saying, 'Who's
yon?' And they said, 'That's the old nuss as reared him from a babby,'
and they shouted till they was fit to crack, and called out, 'Three
cheers for the old nuss.' And Master John, he kept smilin' at me, and I
could do nothin' but roar, and there was Mrs. Alcock, I could hear her
crying behind, and Parker cried too, and he's not a man to show, isn't
Parker. But we'd known 'im, miss, since he was born, and there was no
one else there that did; only me and Parker, and Mrs. Alcock, and
Charles, as had been footman in the family, and come down special from
London at Master John's expense. And such a speech as my precious lamb
did make before them all, saying it was a day he should remember all his
life. Those were his very words. Eh! it was beautiful. And all the
presents as the deputations brought, one after another, and the cannon
fired off fit to break all the glass in the winders. And then in the
evening a hox roasted whole in the courtyard, and a bonfire such as
never was on Moat Hill. And when it got dark, you could see the bonfires
burning at Carley and Gilling, and Wet Waste, and right away to
Kenstone, all where his land is, bless him. Eh! dear me, Miss Tempest,
why was not some of you there?"
"John!" said Di half an hour later, as he was showing her some
miniatures in the ebony cabinet in the picture-gallery, which Cardinal
Wolsey had given the Tempest of his day, "why were not some of us,
Archie or father, at your coming of age?"
They were sitting in the deep window-seat, with the miniatures spread
out between them.
"There was no question about their coming," said John. "Archie was going
in for his examination for the army that week, and your father would not
have come if he had been asked. I did invite our great-uncle, General
Hugh, but he was ill. He died soon afterwards. There was no one else to
ask. You and your father, and Archie and I are the only Tempests there
are."
The miniatures were covered with dust. John's and Di's
pocket-handkerchiefs had an interest in common, which gradually
obliterated all difference between them.
"Why would not father have come if you had asked him?" said Di
presently. "You are friends, aren't you?"
"I suppose we are," said John, "if by friends one only means that we are
not enemies. But there is nothing more than civility between us. You
seem wonderfully well up in ancient family history, Di. Don't you know
the story of the last generation?"
"No," said Di. "I don't know anything for certain. Granny hardly ever
mentions my mother even now. I know she is barely on speaking terms with
father. I hardly ever see him. When she took me, it was on condition
that father should have no claim on me."
"You did not know, then," said John slowly, "that your mother was
engaged to my father at the very time that she ran away with his own
brother, Colonel Tempest?"
Di shook her head. She coloured painfully. John looked at her in
silence, and then pulled out another drawer.
"She was only seventeen," he said at last, with a gentleness that was
new to Di. "She was just old enough to wreck her own life and my poor
father's, but not old enough to be harshly judged. The heaviest blame
was not with _her_. There is a miniature of her here. I suppose my
father had it painted when she was engaged to him. I found it in the
corner of his writing-table drawer, as if he had been in the habit of
looking at it."
He opened the case, and put it into her hand.
Miniatures have generally a monotonous resemblance to one another in
their pink-and-white complexions and red lips and pencilled eyebrows.
This one possessed no marked peculiarity to distinguish it from those
already lying on Di's knee and on the window-seat. It was a lovely face
enough, oval, and pale and young, with dark hair, and still darker eyes.
It had a look of shy innocent dignity, which gave it a certain
individuality and charm. The miniature was set in diamonds, and at the
top the name "Diana" followed the oval in diamonds too.
John and Di looked long at it together.
"Do you think he cared for her very deeply?" said Di at last.
"I am afraid he did."
"Always?"
"I think always. The miniature was in the drawer he used every day. I
don't think he would have kept it there unless he had cared."
Di raised the lid of the case to close it, and as she did so a piece of
yellow paper which had adhered to the faded satin lining of the lid
became dislodged, and fell back over the miniature on which it had
evidently been originally laid. On the reverse side, now uppermost, was
written in a large firm hand the one word, "False."
John started.
"I never noticed that paper before," he said.
"It stuck to the lining of the lid," she replied.
"It must have been always there."
The soft rain whispered at the lattice. In the silence, one of the
plants dropped a few faint petals on the polished floor.
"Then he never forgave her," said Di at last, turning her full deep
glance upon her companion.
"He did not readily forgive."
"He must have been a hard man."
"I do not think he was hard at first. He became so."
"If he became so, he must have had it in him all the time. Trouble could
not have brought it out, unless it had been in his nature to start with.
Trouble only shows what spirit we are of. Even after she was dead he did
not forgive her. He put the miniature where he could look at it; he must
have often looked at it. And he left that bitter word always there. He
might have taken it away when she died. He might have taken it away when
he began to die himself."
"I am afraid," said John, "there were shadows on his life even to the
very end."
"The shadow of an unforgiving spirit."
"Yes," said John gently, "but that is a deep one, Di. It numbs the
heart. He took it down with him to the grave. If it is true that we can
carry nothing away with us out of the world, I hope he left his
bitterness of spirit behind."
Di did not answer.
"That very unforgiveness and bitterness were in him only the seamy side
of constancy," said John at last. "He really loved your mother."
"If he had really loved her, he would have forgiven her."
"Not necessarily. A nobler nature would. But he had not a very noble
nature. That is just the sad part of it."
There was a long silence. At last Di closed the case, and put it back in
the drawer. She held the little slip of paper in her hand, and looked up
at John rather wistfully.
He took it from her, and, walking down the gallery, dropped it into the
wood fire burning at the further end. He came back and stood before her,
and their grave eyes met. The growing intimacy between them seemed to
have made a stride within the last half-hour, which left the
conversation of yesterday miles behind.
"Thank you," she said.